Two days ago, I pasteurized between 4 and 5 gallons of milk. I really wanted to make another round of goat cheddar like the one I made a little over a week ago, but Timothy is graduating from high school a week from today. We are throwing a big party here on the farm, provided it doesn't rain, and I couldn't use up another whole day off making goat cheese. Poo, poo, poo. I did make some more Chevre. And I ate a whole bunch of it.
Yesterday my face stayed red and hot all day. I wasn't feverish at all. It is the same reaction I get from eating almonds. I am wondering if it is the new coffee; or the combination of cleaning solutions throughout the house, or if the goats ate something I'm allergic to that my pasteurizing wouldn't kill. I was set on it being the pigging out on goat cheese (Chevre), but then I remember the same thing happening when working at the last hospital I worked at 7 or so years ago. It happened whenever someone was cleaning.
The cheese I made a couple of weeks ago turned out much better than I expected up to the point I left off. I hope it lasts until late July, when we can cut it. I followed the culturing recipe to the letter. A candy thermometer stayed in the milk the whole time. It was a full day of standing over the stove or sink and watching the temperature closely, and I sure hope there is a reward for that! The curds cut nicely, and shrunk nicely when cooked. I strained the curds into cheesecloth when they were ready, and tied them tight for pressing.
PRESSING
I used the goat cheddar recipe in Ricki Carroll's book, "Home Cheesemaking." It took a long time. My boughten cheese mold wasn't big enough, and I was worried it might not be strong enough to contain a cheese with 50 lbs of weight on it, so I cut out the bottom of a Maxwell House coffee can, and poked some holes in the side. My 17 year old son - the brain that he is - suggested using his barbell weights when my nursing books weren't balancing well. We found a lid strong enough and the right enough size to fit over the top of the cheese, to put the weights on inside the can. His 2 1/2 pound weights fit right into the coffee can. Then he found a bowl that breached the top of the can enough to add some 5 pound weights. Those were wider than the top. Then he found some of my 3 brothers' old 10 pound weights out in the barn, where their old bench press is. We came up with 50 pounds even! We felt ingenious. And they balanced enough to not fall over.
So I pressed the cheese for the allotted amount of time with 20 lbs, then 30 lbs, then 50 lbs. I am eyeing that old cider press out in the barn and thinking of bigger cheeses with a wind-down top...like the professional presses. I just wonder how they figure out exactly how much weight is being applied with those.
In looking for something to drain the cheese on, I recalled that my friend Babs had talked me into buying a sushi making kit I'd never used, and I thought the bamboo matt would be perfect. It was perpetually moist, but it did the job draining/drying the cheese on top of a cutting board. The salt was not good for my already warped and cracked cutting board, but oh well.
The cheese was beautiful. I had ordered cheese salt from Leeners, and salted it until it was mostly dried. You are supposed to salt it once per day, and turn it. I think the oils might have come out forever, and was reading in some Yahoo cheese groups that some peoples' cheese was too dry and cracked, or had stayed too moist and molded. I took an uneducated guess and decided when the whey had stopped and it looked like oil coming, and the oil flow was slowing, to wax it.
WAXING
I had never waxed a cheese. But mother made candles when I was little, and I've made them too. I melted the cheese wax in a clean double boiler pot that had lost its handle. (I am planning on getting new cookware soon anyway). The recommended boar bristle brush painted the wax on just fine. I had to hold where it was cooled long enough for the other side to cool enough to hold, and be careful my fingers didn't go through the wax to expose the cheese. I knew from a cheese my mother made when I was small that if any cheese showed through, mold would take over and ruin it probably.
AGEING
There was a mesh lemon bag from the store. I put the cheese in that and went down to the springhouse. We have an old walk-in springhouse made for a dairy farm, with a run-off trough just the right size to set milk cans in. There are old hooks all over the ceiling. I had always thought they were to hang cheeses on. But my dad's first cousin who just turned 90 and kind of grew up here, says they were for hanging shelves. They kept butter and cottage cheese on the shelves to keep the rodents and other large living things out of it. The shelves were hung on chains. Well, I'm using the hooks for cheese. We might get some shelves up, maybe, later. The springhouse is supposed to stay between 50-55 degrees year round, and it sort of does. But the door is rotted off right now. My brother and husband are planning to fix it along with the 1000 other projects on the farm. So for now it is staying 60-70 degrees on a very warm day. And varmints can get in the open door easily. All it would take is one coyote jump...so I'm praying my cheese will be okay.
The old saying that he "cut the cheese" is taking on new meaning for me. I dearly hope that when that event takes place 60-90 days from now, that the aroma is a good one!!! It is a long time to wait.
