Make cheese

Of all the things I've tried, cheese making was high on the list. Last summer, for my birthday from my parents, I received all the necessary things to make my own cheese. I started working with it and the cheese below is the result.

Ingredients
3 liters of milk
starter
rennet
300 ml of water with 90 grams of salt

Making cheese
Before I can explain how you can make cheese, I first want to pay some attention to the different ingredients that we need for making cheese.

Milk

You can make cheese from the milk of the cow and the goat. On the cheese farm the milk is processed raw for making cheese. If you are one of the lucky ones who can get fresh milk, then you can choose to process raw milk just like on the cheese farm or to pasteurize the milk.

Unfortunately I do not have access to fresh milk, so I use organic whole milk.

Acid

For making cheese, you need special cultured starter to support bacterial processing. This is especially important when you make storage cheese.

Rennet

You need stemsel to curdle the milk (make it thicker). Rennet can be bought in bottles of 50 cl. You can best store rennet in the refrigerator.

Prepare cheese making

Put three liters of milk in a pan and add five to ten cl. starter. Heat the milk slowly and stirring occasionally to 29 degrees Celsius (keep in mind that a pan always warms up a little afterwards). Put the milk I a clean bucket and put the bucket in a not too cold place. Now add 9 to 12 drops of rennet to the milk while stirring (quietly). Cover the bucket with a lid and allow the milk to stand for 20 to 30 minutes. The milk may little to cool down. After 20 to 30 minutes the milk will be sufficiently curdled.

Cutting cheese

After the milk has stood for 20 minutes to 30 minutes you can start cutting the cheese. Go with the curd cutter first along the edge and then in different directions through the curdled milk. Cut especially quietly. Do this for about ten minutes until the pieces are the size of a pea.

Draining the meadow

After the curds have settled, pour carefully the whey until two thirds of the original quantity remains. To avoid losing cheese, it is best to let the meadow run through a sieve. Put curd back into the bucket.

The after-warming of cheese

The whey curd mass must be heated to 33 degrees Celsius. You do this by adding hot water (80 degrees Celsius) to the whey curd mass. Add stirring continuously while adding the water, then stir for ten minutes with the curd slicer. Do this again quietly.

After the curds have settled, pour carefully the whey until two thirds of the original quantity remains.

Second time reheating cheese
Now the whey curd mass must be heated to 36 degrees Celsius. You do this by adding hot water (80 degrees Celsius) to the whey curd mass. Add constant stirring during the addition of the water.

When the final temperature is reached, the curd must stand for ten minutes.

Cheese keg

Pour the whey curd through a colander covered with cheesecloth. Take the cheesecloth with the curds out of the colander and carefully place them in the cheese keg. Press the curd and pull the rest of the cheesecloth tight and smooth and place it over the cheese, try to avoid cloth folding.

Pressing the cheese

Put the cheese keg under the press for ten minutes. Carefully remove the cheese from the cheese keg after ten minutes. Place the cheesecloth in the cheese keg to be placed here according to the cheese (turned over). Put the cheese keg back under the press and let it stand for ten minutes again.

Brining the cheese

Remove the cheese from the cheese keg and place it in a salt bath. I myself put the cheese in a 300 ml bath. water with 90 grams of salt. Leave the cheese in the salt bath for three hours. Turn the cheese after three hours to leave it for another three hours.

Preservation of cheese

Keep the cheese in a cool, not too dry dark place for two weeks. Do not forget to turn the cheese every day.