If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try Mozzarella

This weekend I started my cheesemaking experiment, and despite its unfortunate beginnings, I may be getting the hang of things.

My initial attempt was to make my own chevre, a type of soft, spreadable cheese made of goats milk.  I purchased 4 quarts of goats milk at the local Cub, at $4.32 a quart, assuming “Yes, sort of expensive, but I’m making TWO POUNDS OF CHEESE!  What an investment!”

Chevre is allegedly one of the easiest cheeses to make, especially if you purchase chevre starter like I did.  Bring your milk up to 86 degrees, stir in some starter, remove the milk from the heat and keep it covered for 6-12 hours, then pour into a butter muslin lined colander.  Tie the muslin shut and hang it from the cupboard above the sink, and let drain for 12 hours.

I purchased a candy thermometer at Cub as well, figuring it had the range of temps I needed to make the cheese, so it was fine to use instead of a dairy thermometer.  Maybe it would have been, had I not gotten a $3 thermometer from Cub.  I sterilized the thermometer before using, and it leaked water inside the tube, which I later learned must have made the temperature not read properly.  That’s the only reason I can come up with for the utter failure of my milk, which never formed curd.

Refusing to admit I really didn’t have cheese, I still went through the motions, even draining for 12 hours, not admitting there was almost nothing inside my cloth.  Final yield?  Maybe an ounce of cheese.  Yes, I created $17 an ounce cheese.

The initial taste was wonderful, though — tangy and almost exactly like the chevre from the store, although a little creamier.  I then managed to ruin it completely by adding too much salt (which you will understand a little further into the story), reducing my one ounce of cheese to a literal spoonful of edible end product.

Having realized early on that I had likely failed in my attempt to make goat cheese, I decided to attempt buttermilk cheese instead, using a buttermilk starter I had purchased as well.  The technique is the same as the chevre – heat milk to 90 degrees, add starter, stir, let sit, strain.  I thought it would be a good way to test my chevre making ability — it was basically chevre, but with regular (ie: cheap) milk.  It was also only a quart recipe, so if I messed up the recipe I was out a total of $2 for supplies.

I purchased a new thermometer, this one a $10 meat thermometer from Target.  It covered all the temps of a dairy thermometer, but unfortunately did not have any clip or way to hold it up in the pot on its own.  After trying to jimmy a few solutions, all of which were thrown off by the top-heavy thermometer and just kept flipping over, I had to just hold with one hand and stir with the other.  Once I hit 90 degrees, I stirred in the culture then poured the milk into a thermos and closed it up to sit for 12 hours or so.

By this point, though, I REALLY wanted to make some real cheese.  I flipped to the 30 minute mozzarella recipe in my cheese bible and went to work.  Other than the awkwardness of holding the thermometer with one hand and stirring with the other, the recipe was simple.  I learned quickly that next time I need to premix my citric acid mix in one bowl and my rennant in another bowl and have them ready to use when I get to each step to cut down any additional stress, but other than that, it was fairly simple.  I was overly cautious with my milk heating, which made the recipe take much more than 30 minutes to finish, but otherwise was easily doable in an hour, tops.

This was my first creation of real curd, and I have to admit I was pretty proud to see them form.  Once I had the curd drained and in the bowl, I started the microwaving process.  It soon pulled just like taffy and formed a beautiful stretchy cheese.  I decided against adding the “salt to taste” that was suggested in the recipe, and then Vi, who had woken up by then, helped me form tiny mozzarella balls.

The texture was gorgeous.  The taste?  Meh. It was like a very thin, watery version of the store bought cheese, and very much needed the salt that I didn’t add (Now you know why I accidentally oversalted my goats milk cheese later that day).  Still, I had made cheese!  We ate a little, put the rest in the fridge, and I swore I would make more as soon as I had more milk — this time with salt.

Since I had my mother’s helper the next day, I went out for a long walk, and came home with another gallon of whole milk — this one purchased at the seedy convenience store on the corner.  I went straight into the 30 minute mozz recipe again, with my citric acid and rennant ready to go. 

Once I got to the curd stage, and did the “gentle stir” I was horrified.  Instead of my somewhat large, firmish, jellylike curd, mine disintegrated into tiny curd like small curd cottage cheese.  I started swearing at the pot — the bible states that if your cheese curd breaks up into a ricotta-like consistancy, you likely have ultra-pasteurized milk, a type of flash pasteurized milk that can’t be made into cheese because it was heated at such a high temperature that the protein is destroyed (usually from cheap milk, which is shipped further and can have a longer shelf life).

Despite my bad milk, I figured I’d go ahead and finish the process to work on my technique.  The curd was a mess, and took forever to strain out of the whey, but once I got to the hand-kneading process, it did end up coming together, and I had another stretchy, lovely mozzarella (this time, lightly salty).  I put the cheese in the refrigerator while we went to Vi’s daycare for Valentine’s Day, and when I got home I cut it into strips and used it on our homemade pizza.

The flavor was better with the salt, but still not fantastic.  I’ve realized 30 minute mozzarella is more party trick than good cheese, although it was a good one to do to learn the ropes.

Then there was the buttermilk cheese….

Yesterday morning I opened my thermos and found properly curdled milk, which I drained all day yesterday.  This morning, I had a rich, creamy cheese the consistency of a cream cheese.  The flavor is much like a solid sour cream, and with a little minced garlic, chive and dill, it made a ridiculously tasty herb cream cheese.

I’m ready to try chevre again now.  If only I could find more goats milk that isn’t $17 a gallon.

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Tags: buttermilk cheese, chevre, mozzarella 30

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