First cheese- FETA! (with pics)

I have been looking into brewing beer for the last month, but since I am in the middle of a move and can't get my equipment until Oct I opted to make some cheese in the meantime.

I am very lucky to have a goat farm right down the road where I was able to get 1 gallon on fresh milk and from that I made feta in about a week.
I followed the recipe from this page and bought the two ingredients needed from my LHBS. http://fiascofarm.com/dairy/feta.html

First cooked the milk


Then added ingredients to allow it to curdle


Cheesecloth was ready in a strainer


Collect all the curdle in the cloth


Then the waiting start by letting the cheese hang for three hrs

Thats pretty cool man, hows it taste

Then after three hrs you take it out and turn it over to let it drain again, but for 24hrs now


Then after 24 hrs you take it out, cut it, and let it soak in salt for 3 days




Then lastly you just let it age in a jar of salt water.


I have to say it tastes GREAT! Has just the right texture to crumble it and was super easy to make.
I would recommend it to anyone for a simple cheese, and it was especially good practice for maintaining the right temperature.

I did exactly the same thing on Saturday with 2.5 gallons of fresh milk I got from a brew club buddy. Straight from the udder is the way to go for sure. I got about 2.5 lb of Feta waiting to be brined and made about a cup of ricotta from the cooked whey.

A quart of skimmed cream went to make a vanilla ice cream with Mexican vanilla that will knock your socks off.

I'll be trying other cheeses as more milk comes available.

Best of luck in the future!

I have to say, this post is what really sparked my interest in cheese making.

I can't wait to give it a try!

How vital is it to have adouble boiler for cheese.making?

I would say it makes life a LOT easier. With milk you have to be careful not to overheat it and slowly get it to the desired temp. A double boiler really helped me do that. Otherwise there is a good chance of unevenly heating the milk
I just put a smaller pot inside of a larger pot as my "double boiler"