Goat's Milk, No Strings, Close-by, You're Sh!tting Me Right?

The sister in law has been scouring the local animal keepers to try and find me some form of raw milk. Her family spent a week camped in the local County Fair showing their chickens, turkeys, and rabbits, and had asked everybody they came into contact with for a source for ANY form of raw milk, and she just said this week that an acquaintance close-by has a small herd and will make available some goats milk without a fancy legal agreement.

I couldn't believe my ears. She said to give her a couple weeks and it should happen.

Today she came over to help the wife do a flower arranging party with my wife for a friend's wedding, and said that she had another source of goat's milk-with a gallon waiting to be picked up-today.

I tried mozz with every brand of store-bought that I could find and had very poor luck, even with CaCl and animal rennet. My best was a creamy, or sludgy, rather, base suitable only to make a party dip out of.

I have prepared to make hard cheeses, have the equipment and cultures for over 100 pounds of cheese waiting, but I have not had access to the main ingredient-until apparently today. And yet the ease of the arrangement is still beyond my belief...

More to follow....hopefully....

I can't imagine that goat milk would make the best mozzerela. You are better off starting with a fresh chevre.

I won't be bothering to start with making soft cheeses after all this waiting-I'm going for it! Just like when I started brewing.

Clean break fail. This was a goat milk cheddar recipe.

Used CaCl, animal rennet.

Was I supposed to add citric acid to raw goat milk?
Did following a recipe that had me pasteurize at 150* for 30 kill the proteins?

Henry Hill said:

Clean break fail. This was a goat milk cheddar recipe.

Used CaCl, animal rennet.

Was I supposed to add citric acid to raw goat milk?
Did following a recipe that had me pasteurize at 150* for 30 kill the proteins?

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You should have easily got a clean break, using CaCl. I dont' pasteurize, but that shouldn't have made a difference.

No, no citric acid is necessary. But what cultures did you use?

Sometimes, I add the culture and wait about 60 minutes before adding the rennet.

I'm not a cheddar maker, but I've made lots of other cheeses.

I have two friends in the cheese making business. they make ricotta, blue, raw blue, and camembert from either sheep's milk fresh their farm or from a combination of local cows milk and their sheeps milk. Unfortunately they use all the milk they get for their cheese but Ill run this by them and see if they have any suggestions for you. If you detailed your process for me I think they'd be able to help you out more.

Making Cheese, how to make your own cheddar cheese

And CACl per the bottle directions, while ripening. I bailed on the recipe after 'setting'.

But going back just now to see the CaCl wasn't in the recipe, I found this quote:

"Starter:Stir in the starter and leave the milk, covered in a warm place for about an hour so that it can acidify. Don’t leave it for much longer than this otherwise the cheese may be too dry and crumbly."

Hmmm, I got a dry sort of ricotta when I was done.

I used ricki's meso culture...and she's the Cheese Queen.

- Mesophilic(DS)-5pack #C101

What I notice is there is little similarity to recipes for cheese like there is for beer recipes-beer seems EASY to follow a recipe for. Cheese recipes are somewhat vague and they vary from recipe to recipe.

Got another gallon, and she let me borrow Goats Produce Too-Mary Jane Toth-1993.

http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&t...+produce+too&start=0&sa=N&fp=d9ca629f83f82f8a

I'll give it another go on Monday.

Henry Hill said:

Got another gallon, and she let me borrow Goats Produce Too-Mary Jane Toth-1993.

Google

I'll give it another go on Monday.

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How did it go Monday? I didn't get to show him the thread(we were backpacking a couple high peaks), but he seemed to think it was most likely left to long like you deduced yourself.

On another note, he served up a tasting over the weekend, my 2 favorites of which were a peppercorn'd goat fresh cheese from a local competitor of his and a goat gouda from Holland that was amazing.

Partying (trashed) Monday, free fresh hops collection and pruning for drying Tuesday, cheese today.

Did a simple Mozz while cooking dinner-perfect outcome. Making a Insalata Caprese Salad.
Insalata Caprese Salad, Mozzarella, Tomato & Basil Plate, How To Make Insalata Caprese Salad, Caprese Salad, Tomato Recipes, Mozzarella Cheese Recipes

Ordering the book tonight.

I keep looking and no cheap line on suitable cheese cave.

After the first of the year is what Lowes and HD say.

Got the book thru Amazon-14.95 and 3.99 shipping.

She signed it, too.

There was a story in the paper a couple years back about a farm in the Howell area. You had to lease the cow, as I remember.

fullstop22 said:

There was a story in the paper a couple years back about a farm in the Howell area. You had to lease the cow, as I remember.

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...that was only before you married it, right??? From what I've learned...there's no FREE milk...

I found a place in Davidson and another in Grand Blanc, but that's a minimum of 40 miles one way.

Just My opinion~~~~ i make all my cheese from goat milk-my own goats~~ never had a failed recipie although i have not tried Mozz yet-often dont have the time-but i have a weeks vacation comng up and i will try the Mozz and let you know-my does are late in their lactation so not sure how that will work out for me~~~~~
MNBlonde