The importance of salt

Well the morning has come, and the cheese it has drained. And Salt is important.
Used as a protection against fairies, and a charm against ill-wishing, salt was thought to represent mans soul at one point here in Scotland. Salt should not be forgotten.

Understandably I was very excited when I opened the fridge this morning - it doesn't look like they've drained much more than they had last night - the bags still felt slightly damp, but also a little firmer. I untied one and turned the bag inside out - and was surprised to find the cheese coming out in one lump - and not sticking to the bag... It was an uneven - rough shaped lump just smaller than a golf ball. In shape it reminds me of mozzarella
The cheese itself is alright, but very bland. They're soft and slightly crumbly - easily spread, but doesn't fall apart when handled. There is a slight aftertaste of goatiness that my sister couldn't detect - perhaps I'm used to noticing subtle flavours in cheese now? But other than that - no flavour whatsoever.
I'm assuming this is because I didn't salt the curds before I drained them, rather than that I used pasteurised and homogenised milk. Anyway - it's an hypothesis I intend to test fairly soon!

After a glass and a half of very cheap red wine I decided that I'd attempt to use the whey I had left over to produce Ricotta. This mostly ended up being guess work as I hadn't planned on doing anything much with it. The recipe I used called for a litre of whey - I had substantially less than this, but I don't know how much and 1/8 of a cup of vinegar. I have no idea how much that is. I decided to put in a table spoon of vinegar into the re-heated whey (again using the double boiler) and I stirred. And I stirred and I stirred.
Two hours later, nothing had happened. It was after 10 by this point and I decided to call it a night and start tidying up.

I have since been doing some more reading on the making of cheese, and apparently, according to one source at least, using homogenised milk is often unsuccessful. The process breaks up the fat too much so it doesn't form curds.
I managed to make some cheese with the milk, perhaps I was expecting too much to make the by-product too? Which is a real shame, as I now have a new found respect for ricotta - made from bad wine and the cheese makers discards! (traditionally associated with Parmegiano) And think how versatile it is...

Ah well, I guess the next step now is to attempt to source non-homogenised milk - which might involve approaching dairies and farmers directly. This might also increase my initial yield.

First Steps

I've been talking for a couple of months now about the kind of life I want - like a lot of people I'd been slightly dinted by the recession, and so I was given the chance to ask myself - where do I want to be next time this happens?

The answer was; as self reliant as possible.
My life so far has provided very few skills in terms of farming, animal husbandry, or self-sufficiency - so I quickly realised I had a long way to go before I could reach my goal.
This blog is intended (at least for the moment) as a record of my steps along this road, so that I can learn from my mistakes, and others can too, and mark my progress.

So to begin, I currently live in the centre of a city, in a basement flat with my sister. I work full time in a cheese shop, and enjoy knitting and reading in my spare time.

I took my first step today. Or, more accurately, I'm in the middle of taking my first step.
I'm attempting to make my own goats cheese. I suspect it will all end terribly.
I started with 1 litre of Goats Milk, 1 tub of Goats yogurt and 1 bottle of vege-ren. I'm a little disappointed that I can't start with proper cultures instead of using yogurt, but cost is restrictive. This morning I also bought some cheese cloths - at £4 a sheet I was rather annoyed to be told by my sister that muslin cloth (practically the same thing) is sold for around £1 a metre in the same shop... live and learn...
I should also have bought a sugar thermometer - the majority of the instructions I've read insist on one - but, even though it is jam making season, or perhaps because of it, I failed to find one.

I began by creating a double boiler - that is - I put my second biggest pan inside my biggest pan, filled the bigger with water and the smaller with milk and put it on the hob.
Into the milk I dropped two dollops of yogurt, and started heating.
When the milk was warm I sprinkled 10 drops (the recommended amount) of vege-ren.
It's been warming for about an hour now, and still no sign of curds - I've been trying to keep the milk at about hand hot temperature, with the water just below boiling. I stirred it almost constantly for the first 45 minutes, but I'm afraid my attention span isn't much longer than that.

After two hours the results were clear - I'm not sure if this was just about the time, or about the 10 extra drops I'd put in approximately 20 minutes earlier... (I'd miss read the instructions on the rennet). But I definitely had curds!

So I draped my large piece of cheese cloth over a bowl and poured all of the mixture in - when I'd bought the cheese cloth I'd also bought four small bags made out of the same material. They're meant for bouquet garni or some other such thing - but I wanted to see if they'd work with the cheese. I tried spooning curds and whey into one bag, and realised that this was a sure way to get milky goop all over the kitchen - so I hung the rest of the mixture up for about five minutes over the plastic bowl to drain.
I then realised how little cheese I actually had and decided it would be easier fridge-space-wise to try and put all of the curds in the little bags - they're drawstring, and so I could tie them to the wire shelves.

Theses are supposed to drain for a while now, but I'm not sure how ong for, since they're so small. I also forgot to salt them, which might be interesting. Considering that I know the two most important things in aged cheese that affect flavour are salt and moisture levels, these seem to be the things I've bothered least about. I will be tasting them tomorrow anyway, and I'll be interested to see how these home-made from pasteurised-homogenised-milk with yogurt starter will compare to the £8 goats cheese I shall be selling in the shop!