Making Chèvre

Today was my last attempt with making cheese with my fresh goat's milk.  I may experiment later in the year with frozen milk.  I've read lots of advice from different internet sites on using frozen milk.  They directly conflict each other on several points.  "Don't use frozen milk, it won't work.  Frozen milk works just fine for cheese making.  You can make cheese with frozen milk if you thaw it slowly. You can make cheese with frozen milk if you thaw it quickly. etc."  My book says to only use milk less than 48 hours old.  So, who knows?

Anyway, I chose chèvre for today's cheese. It is a french-style soft cheese.

Once again, I started out with fresh whole milk in the vat, five quarts this time, and warmed it to 80 degrees.  I sprinkled DVI Chèvre Culture over the warmed milk and stirred.  Then I added diluted rennet and stirred again.  Then, as per the instructions, I put the lid on and left it undisturbed for eight hours.

It was pretty quick and simple.

This is what it looked like after eight hours.  I didn't dare even lift the lid or jostle it during that time period for fear of messing something up.  So, I was excited to see if it had done anything, and it had!  I was happy to see that it was a large solid mass.  I tilted the pan for the picture to show how it pulls away from the edge en masse.  There was a film of whey over the top.

Then I poured it into a cheesecloth lined colander to let it drain.  After a large portion of whey had drained out...

I pulled up the edges of the cheesecloth and tied them so that I could hang it to drain more.  My banana hanger worked pretty good for this part.  I had to empty the blue bowl several times.

After about six hours of draining, the cheese had taken on the contours of the cheesecloth.  It looked sort of like a pumpkin.  I divided it into containers and put it in the refrigerator.  I'll do an internet search for a good recipe to season it.

I was very happy with how it turned out.  Hopefully, it will taste as good as it looks.