A while back, I asked Lucy's mom to send over a packet of rennet and some gouda culture. It has taken longer than wanted, but Rob and I finally got a cheesepress made and made our first block!! Unfortunately, the gouda culture was dead when I reconstituted it, so we had to use live yogurt, bought at the foreign food shop in Itaewon, as a culture.



Here are my quite notes for the cheese we made:

Warm milk to 20C. Stir in 125ml yogurt starter with 2 cups milk at 20C and add to rest of milk.



Inoculate overnight at around 20-22C.



Add rennet at 30C (approx)



After it has consistency of jello, (Multiply the amount of time until surface gelling by 2, and wait that much longer before cutting the curd into 2" pieces with a long knife. For example, if it was 10 minutes before the surface gelled, wait 20 more minutes to cut the curd &mdash cutting horizontally, vertically and diagonally across the depth of the curd) cut the curds and let settle to the bottom.



Drain off excess whey.



Raise temperature a few degrees (to 35C for soft and 39C for harder cheese) slowly over 45 minutes.



Let sit 15 minutes.



Drain into cheese cloth and press. 20lbs overnight??



Soak in brine.



It was surprisingly easy to make and while I am sure we made some mistakes, the cheese has turned out. It took longer than expected for the milk to become jell-o like after we added the rennet – it actually didn’t go as hard as it probably should have. The press we made worked great, I think Rob has some pics of it. Also tried to make ricotta quickly after with all the whey, but it did not work. I probably needed to add some more milk to it... Here is the recipe for that:



How to Make Ricotta the Traditional Way

To make ricotta in the traditional way, you will first need to save the whey from making another type of goat cheese that was not produced with an acid, such as vinegar or lemon juice.

Let the whey sit at room temperature for 12-24 hours to continue the fermentation started by the bacterial cheese culture. This will acidify the whey, promoting the separation of the protein to form the cheese.

Slowly heat the whey to 195-200° Fahrenheit while stirring. Do not allow to boil.

Very tiny white particles should start to appear at the top of the whey. Remove from heat and pour into a cheese cloth-lined colander. Gather the ends of the cheesecloth and hang to continue draining. Drain for an hour or longer, depending on the consistency desired.



Here are some pictures!