Making cheese, day two

by Nik on February 9, 2010

Remarkably – because I really wan’t all that sure it would work – the cheese starter has been a success. We now have far, far more than we need. A litre, to be precise, which is 1000ml. And how much did we need? 7.5ml.

Taking 7.5ml from our litre of starter

We knew it was ready because of the way it looked. Shaking the jug in which we’d made it set it wobbling like a blancmange, and it had a slightly acrid sharp smell.

So today was day two, when the cheese making proper began.

First ingredient, more milk. We’re using full fat milk because I suspect that the fat content (4%) will give us firmer curds, although at the moment that is pure speculation on my part.

We poured a litre of it into a pan, heated it gently to take off the chill (to 30 degrees Celsius / 86 degrees Fahrenheit) and then stirred in the 7.5ml of starter. It then needs to sit for three quarters of an hour while the cultures grow.

Adding cheese starter to our pan

When the time is up we added 5ml of vegetarian rennet, which is what helps separate the curds (solid parts) and whey (liquid parts) so that the whey can be disposed of and the solids retained to make the cheese. With the rennet added we left it for a further 45 minutes during which it did its magic. Coming back to it at the end of that time we found that our thick milk had turned more or less solid – enough to be sliced with a knife.

We cut it up into small squares then put it back on the hob to heat to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) while we stirred it, then took it off the heat and left it to settle for 10 minutes. It was at this point that the curds and whey properly separated, leaving a yellowy liquid floating on top of the solids.

The whey needs to be drained off, so we lined a sieve with the muslin bag we use to strain jelly and poured the contents of the pan through it. It was very effective, and much quicker than stacking and pressing, which is the accepted routine.

Straining the cheese mixture

With the curds fully drained and quite dry we put them back in the empty pan, mashed them up with a wooden spoon and added a gram of salt to stop the bacteria from multiplying any more. Why one gram? Because we were using a litre of milk.

Now all we need to do is harden it up. We’ve packed it into a cheese mould, wrapped in cheese cloth and set the whole thing in the fruit press with a fair amount of pressure.

Over the next four days we’ll have to remove it every evening and turn it over and reapply the pressure, at the end of which we should have something that looks more or less like a conventional cheese.

That’s when the waiting begins as it slowly matures.