It’s a cold weekend in January with nothing much to do, so I thought it would an ideal time to make some cheese. I haven’t made cheese since before my eldest was born (a loooong time), but I remember it being a pleasant activity, a nice way to spend a day.
Saturday morning I went to my neighboring dairy farmer and bought (well, he gave it to me) 4 gallons of the finest Indiana raw milk.
4 gallons of raw milk, ready to become cheese
I used the cheese recipe that comes in a package of rennet by Dr. David Frankenhauser. If you don’t have your package of rennet handy you can Google ‘Frankenhauser cheese’ and it’s the first hit.
I made a double boiler of sorts by putting a cooling rack in my paella pan, filling it with water and setting the enamel pan of milk in that. It worked well, it made it easy to control the heat on the milk and not scorch it.
An improvised 5 gallon double boiler.
There was one minor issue with the double boiler. You’ll note in the picture above the large paella pan is overlapping the edge of the stove. I fired up the burner and soon there was a distinct burning odor filling the house. Debbie and I looked about and decided it must just be something burning off the bottom of the paella pan.
Not until I moved the pan later did I realize the overhanging pan was letting the flames lap up against the wooden top of the cart next to the stove.
Whoops.
In this recipe you add rennet to the milk and wait 1 to 3 hours for it to gel. I waited 3 hours… and waited some more… and waited even more… and finally after 8 hours it had gelled. You know it’s ready when it breaks cleanly around a (clean) finger.
Nicely set milk.
From here you dice up the curd with a long knife and cook it at around 100 degrees until it looks like scrambled eggs. Then you pour off the whey.
Pouring off whey.
I took the curds and put them in a muslin sack in my homemade cheese press.
Cheese press.
Weighted cheese press.
The press is sitting on an upside pie plate in the primary fermenter I use for making wine. The pie plate keeps the cheese out of the pressed out whey. The cheese will sit in here overnight, then I’ll rub it with salt and cure it in the refrigerator. it needs to age at least a month before eating.
The poured off whey, still nearly 4 gallons, will sit overnight too, then I’ll make ricotta with it tomorrow. According to the good Doctor Frankenhauser it will make around a pound of ricotta.
Ricotta to be.
My memory was correct, it is a pleasant way to spend a cold winter day.
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