The Fine Art of Making Cottage Cheese

I started writing this post in June of 2013 and have yet to make a good, tasty batch of cottage cheese. Here is what I wrote back then.

"I have yet to be successful making cottage cheese. It is either more like ultra thick yogurt, tiny little curd crumbs or rubbery. Sound appetizing? Not, really. But.....I still want to be able to make it, so succeed or fail, I am going to try again and let you see how it goes. Who knows, maybe there is someone out there reading that knows how to do this and can help me out. That would be a real blessing.

This recipe calls for one gallon of whole milk, buttermilk and rennet. It is really a pretty simple process." 





I still have yet to make a good cottage cheese. I didn't even try for a year or so, since it never turned out edible. Well, last week I decided it was time to try again. I used the same book, same recipe and got the same results.....again. The curd was too done, rubbery and squeaked in my teeth. There was no flavor to speak of and the consistency was yucky.

After that attempt I got out my other cheese making books and compared the recipes. The main difference was not letting the curd sit at 110* for 30 minutes after it was heated up. I hoped that eliminating that 30 minute time frame would allow the curds to stay in a softer state, similar to store bought cottage cheese. It's hard to describe, but if you picture the consistency of store bought cottage cheese curds, they are soft, pliable and kind of juicy inside. I know, poor description, but I can't think of a better way to compare theirs and mine. 

I made another batch of cottage cheese today. It's better, but still rather rubbery, lacking the soft, pliable texture I am looking for. Here is what I did.

1 gallon of skimmed goat milk heated to 86*
Add 1/2 cup cultured buttermilk
Add 1/4 cup water to which 1/4 tsp. of rennet was added
Stir for 30 seconds
Let sit and ripen for 1 hour at 86*
Cut the curd into 1/2" cubes
Slowly heat curd to 110*

Okay. This is where the cheese books differed. Two of them indicated that the next step is too drain the curd instead of letting it sit and 'cook' at 110*, so that's what I did today.
 

When I poured the curd and whey into a cheese cloth lined colander, the consistency of the curd was very nice and reminded me somewhat of store bought cottage cheese. I was happy. But as soon as I poured it into the colander to drain, it's like the curds released all of their interior moisture, matted up and became chewy and squeaky again. Rats!

The next step is supposed to be to let the whey drain, then dip the cheese cloth with the curds into cold water to cool them, and let them drain again. Which I did, but the curds had already changed. It's this change or step that I am trying to figure out. How do I prevent the curds from releasing their moisture/liquid/whey? Cool them quicker? I'm not sure. I'll have to experiment some more.

The good news is that it tastes better this time. I crumbled up the curd, since it was trying to mat together. It's just the nature of the curd to want to mat together. I added 1/2 tsp. of salt and about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of cream I had skimmed from the milk before I started.

Frank and I did a taste test before I put it into the fridge to chill. We'll see how it tastes later on, then again tomorrow. My first attempt the other day ended up as pig food, so it wasn't a complete loss. This one may end up the same way. I may even share some with the chickens, too.

If you have any recommendations, I sure would like to hear them. I know there are other ways to make cottage cheese, like leaving it out on the cabinet for a few days and letting it curdle. I'm not brave enough to try that one yet. I guess I still want to have a little more control over the process. Not that I don't have sauerkraut and kefir sitting out on the cabinet all the time, it's just different than two or three day old curdled milk.

I'll keep you updated on my cottage cheese making progress, and hopefully it won't be two years before I try again. I'd like to be able to master this technique. It's kind of like learning to make bread. Frank and I have eaten a bunch of heavy, heavy flat whole wheat bread. We call it brick bread. Almost edible, but not very good. That was part of my learning to make a consistently, good loaf of bread. Then I started making sourdough bread. Yes, we have had a few rather heavy batches, and one that was too sour to eat. Now is the time to master making good, edible cottage cheese, so please help me out if you can.

Until next time - Fern

Herb Cheese & Planting Roses

We have another respite from the rain today with some sunshine off and on between the clouds. I went out yesterday and pulled back some of the free mulch, from the hickory and pine trees, off of the plants that are peaking up in the herb bed. It's about all I could do since the ground is super saturated right now. We have slowly been building up the milk supply in the frig to the point where we can start making a couple of batches of cheese a week. Last week we made a small batch of mozzarella with one gallon of milk. When we have plenty of milk, I make two or four gallon batches of mozzarella and freeze the extra. For now, we are making fresh cheese to eat, and we're very glad to have it. Once our three young does, Lady Bug, Cricket and Penny, kid and begin producing enough milk, we will have way more than enough to really ramp up our cheese production. First up will be cheddar since it needs to age at least three months to start having a mild cheddar taste. We have been out of homemade for quite some time and once you get used to it, store bought just doesn't hold a candle to it in flavor, freshness, consistency and nutrition. 

So today I made a fresh, pressed herb cheese. It is the same recipe I used last year, with the same ingredients, but only the second wheel of herb cheese I have made. I mentioned last year that I thought it would be good as a pepper cheese, and that will probably be the one I try next. After that, I think I will try one with oregano and maybe marjoram. Both of those plants are coming out in the herb bed, so by then I should be able to use fresh herbs in the cheese.

Oregano peeking out, March 15th

Here is a pictorial of the cheese I made today. As I mentioned in the article last year, there are other cheese making articles that will show you some of the specifics of the process we use. If you have any questions about any step of this procedure, please let me know and I will address them to the best of my ability.

Time to dust off the old cheese press

These are the multiplier onions I accidentally planted, and then dug up out of the garden last year. They've been waiting all winter in this tub on the porch to be planted in the herb bed where they belong.

One of the garlic patches

The garlic is doing well. I chose the largest of this bunch.

The curds are ready to heat and cook down

Time to pour off the whey

We save the whey in plastic jars for the dog, cats and sometimes chickens.

I had to crumble the curd so I could add the garlic, onions and salt.

Last year I thought the cheese was a little dry, so I didn't press it as hard, and I only left it in the press for three hours.

Frank wanted to taste the cheese right after I took it out of the press. I warned him that it wouldn't taste like what he was expecting. He only ate half a bite and said it wasn't any good. Then he asked when it would be good. I told him tomorrow or the next day after it has time to sit and let the flavors blend together.
 

The recipe recommends putting the cheese on a plate covered with plastic wrap. I chose a bowl and our reusable food wrap instead. After the cheese was in the press, I had three hours to do other things, like feed us lunch. 

We received the rose bushes we ordered in the mail today, which we opened right away, then started them soaking in water. Since they are bare root, they needed to be rehydrated and kick started before I put them in the ground. I guess one advantage for them now is the fact that the ground is so saturated. There will not be any shortage of moisture for them to get off to a good start, not to mention that we have a chance of rain everyday this week starting again tomorrow afternoon. Otherwise I would wait a few days for the ground to dry up before planting. But I think these bushes would be better off in the ground than sitting around another few weeks waiting for better conditions.

 

I planted four rose bushes last summer that had been living in pots on the porch waiting for a permanent home. Plants here have to be willing and able to live in rather primitive conditions without a lot of TLC, or they just won't make it. These bushes are a mix of red and cream colored roses.

That being said, three of the four are budding out and seem to be doing just fine. The verdict is still out on the fourth one. It appears the upper branches are dead, but maybe not the rest. We will see. [After I wrote this I found this leaf budding out toward the bottom of the plant. Yea!]

One of the main reasons I am planting roses is for the nutrients in the petals and rose hips. We also have many wild roses growing around here and there. I used the rose hips I picked last summer, which weren't very many, to make rose water for the last batch of lotion I made. I thought that was very neat.

The new rose bushes are called Harison's, which is the name given to the classic Yellow Rose of Texas. You see, Frank and I are Texans, that have been transplanted to Oklahoma. If you are from Texas, you know how we feel. We will always be Texans. That's why Frank requested I find and plant the Yellow Rose of Texas here on our homestead. And since these roses will have to fend for themselves in our semi wild yard, I bought four of them, just in case some of them don't make it.

I gave the roses a small dose of this great barnyard compost.

I saved some extra coffee grounds to give to these new bushes since they prefer a slightly acidic soil.
 




I've said a little prayer that they will do well. Just for Frank. It's nice to be able to do something special for your spouse, even if it takes years to accomplish. I envision a big, wild entanglement of rose bushes all over this fence with beautiful, yellow roses that I can pick to adorn our table. This is one dream I do hope comes true.

The herb cheese is beautiful and I really get a great deal of satisfaction making it. We will have some tomorrow with our lunch. I hope it's edible then.





By the way. Yesterday at our small country church we sang Brethren, We Have Met To Worship, and it really touched our hearts. We both went back and looked at the words again. Here are two different versions of it, one very country, and one with a church choir. If you care to listen, I pray it touches your heart as well. The second verse really stuck with me. "Brethren, see poor sinners round you, Slumbering on the brink of woe; Death is coming, hell is moving, Can you bear to let them go? See our fathers and our mothers, And our children sinking down; Brethren, pray, and holy manna, Will be showered all around."

Here is the site of tomorrow's planting

 








I hope to get the cole crops into the garden tomorrow before the rains come again, so the next post may be a little muddy. I'll let you know how that goes and how the cheese turns out. Spring is just a few days away and life on the homestead will get much busier. We will get the garden in, and spend time tending it. I have many, many more seedlings to grow, especially for the herb bed. After we kill off all of the weeds and scrubby tree stuff at the end of the garden, we will be starting a new comfrey bed. The extra strawberries that have spread out into the garden area will also be used to start a new bed. More baby goats will be arriving in a little over two weeks, and that means more time milking each day, especially with three young does to train. I haven't gotten much more done on the rag rugs, but it will be sitting here waiting on me when I am ready to pick it up again. Life is good. It would be so much easier to sit back and be lazy, and I am actually pretty good at that, as well. But there is nothing like having plenty to do. It keeps you going, learning, dreaming and accomplishing. Blessings to you all.

Until next time - Fern

Uh-Oh...Did the Kefir Die?

The performance of the kefir has been causing some concern since we came home from the hospital. Up until yesterday, I didn't think the prognosis was good. This is what happened.

While Frank was in the hospital, the plan was for me to come home everyday and do the chores - feed the animals, milk the goats, etc. One of those chores was to strain and feed the kefir. On more than one occasion, I did not come home for at least 36 hours, and once for 48 hours. This impacted the animals as well as the kefir. The two does I am milking were thrown off their routine as well as their feeding schedule. They did not get milked regularly, but they did not get fed either, so they produced less milk. Was this ideal? No. But, there are times we have to prioritize and choose what we will do with our time. Frank easily won, hands down. It was fairly easy to get the goats back on track, even though they are not producing quite as much milk as before. I expected that.

My standard practice is to strain and feed the kefir every 24 hours. During the 48 hour period I was away, the kefir had fed on all available nutrients in the milk and the jar was half whey and half fairly solid curd, kind of like cottage cheese. I strained it and gave it a full quart of milk to 'eat' and headed back to the hospital. Two days later, it sat for around 36 hours. It was kind of thick again, but not near as much as I expected. I could tell it wasn't happy. A few days later, we were home and I started feeding it regularly again. The first milk I had to feed it after we got home was getting a little older, and I don't think it liked that either. You could say Frank's stay in the hospital made the kefir sick.

It still thickened the milk somewhat the first day or two we were home, then appeared to quit. When I strained the milk after 24 hours it was still very thin, like milk, and had a semi soured smell. The chickens got this milk. After a second day of staying very thin, I briefly rinsed the grains with tap water when I strained them, before feeding them again. I had read or been told that somewhere and had tried it before when the kefir interacted with the sourdough starter I had out on the counter for a number of days. I thought I had killed the kefir then, too. For the most part, it seems to be a very healthy, sturdy culture. Then you find out that there are some things it just doesn't tolerate well.

After I rinsed the grains, I waited two more days to see if they would perk back up and they did not. I didn't take any pictures, but the grains were not round and plump looking like they usually are, they were smaller and more grainy looking. Finally, on about day eight when I was convinced they were dead, about half way through the 24 hour period, I scooped the grains out of the milk and squeezed them with my fingers, just kind of smashing them flat. They still had the sticky, tacky consistency that is supposed to be there, so I that gave me a little hope. Then, surprise, surprise, at the end of the day when it was time to strain them, the milk had thickened some. Not quite as much as normal, but I could tell they were on their way back to health, and that's good.

We were looking forward to drinking the kefir when we got home, especially Frank. Well, I can't say that. He never looks forward to drinking it because the taste just isn't quite in his top ten list. But he is looking forward to drinking it because of it's health benefits, especially now that we are working on healing his body.

This is just one more example of don't give up. Try everything you can think of and then some. Does it always work? No. But you never know. You might just be pleasantly surprised. We were.

Until next time - Fern