first time - paneer - sanitizing and hanging questions

Gunna take a stab at cheesemaking after 2 years of homebrewing. Picked up a copy of the For Dummies book, and am gunna start with the Paneer recipe and make a Saag Paneer with it (I love saag paneer, hopefully I get something decent!).

Do I really need to sanitize my cooking pot and spoon? Won't the act of heating the milk on the stove sanitize it?

Also, the book says to sanitize your entire kitchen counter and put all your food away and not to eat/cook while cheesemaking is in process... how critical is all of this?

Finally - any tips for where to hang the cheese? Seems like putting it on the door knob would cause whey to drip down the side of the door, leaving a mess...

Thanks, hopefully this is as fun as brewing!

I was taught to make paneer by an old hindi woman.

It was simple, the paneer was not being kept very long so it was not big on sanitation.

This is how it goes.

Ingredients:
Milk
Ascorbic acid or lemon juice.

Basically, put your milk in a large pot, the better the milk, the better the result.

Bring the milk to a boil and she emphasised that the time to wait for was when the milk started to boil and the foam rises up in the pan, then take it off the heat and add a pinch of acid, stir the lot and you will see a split, add more acid if necessary.
When sufficiently split, you will see the green whey splitting from the curd and it's a definite split. Then pour the results through some muslin sitting in a collander, once poured, turn on the tap and run water through to rinse the acid out of the paneer. You can add some salt also just after this point if you wish.

Now take the muslin, gather it all up in to a ball and then twist to drain.
Once sufficiently drained then fill your pot again with cold water and put the muslin back in the sink and put the heavy pot on top of it to flatten it into a patty and then leave it for an hour or two to press and cool.

That's it really, enjoy.

jigidyjim said:

Do I really need to sanitize my cooking pot and spoon? Won't the act of heating the milk on the stove sanitize it?

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For paneer, you should be OK since you'll be bringing the milk up higher than the temperatures which bacteria and mold can live. For almost every other cheese the temperatures don't get nearly that high. I'd recommend doing it simply as part of good habit-forming but it's less necessary here than elsewhere.

Also, the book says to sanitize your entire kitchen counter and put all your food away and not to eat/cook while cheesemaking is in process... how critical is all of this?

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Pretty critical. You're looking to avoid cross-contamination. Between you, me and the wall, if some over-preserved quasi-food like Cheetos were out on the counter nothing bad would probably happen. But any meat, veggie, etc. could contaminate your cheese.

Finally - any tips for where to hang the cheese? Seems like putting it on the door knob would cause whey to drip down the side of the door, leaving a mess...

Click to expand...

Yeah, you definitely don't want to have the cheese doing that. I looped some string through the divider of an open cabinet and hung it that way. In my case I was lucky to have cabinets over the sink; if yours are over the counter obviously you'll want a bowl down below.