A Bit Like Feta

Feta style cheese is so easy to make, and only needs 4 litres of milk instead of the normal 8 that I use for a harder type cheese.  With minimal stirring after cutting the curd, and a pressing of only 4 hours, what is not to like about this cheese.  Here is a batch that I made last week.

I don't use a normal press, with this two litre milk bottle filled with water serving as the weight.  It doesn't need much pressure to form the block.  The curds starts off in both moulds, then at the two hour mark, they have shrunk enough for me to squish them together in a single mould forming one block.  If you look closely you can see the join line.

Once pressed, I make up a strong brine by adding half a cup of salt to two litres of the left over whey, and a quarter of a cup of white vinegar.  This was the first time that I had used the whey as the base for the brine, and found that it worked very well and it improved the final flavour of the cheese.

I let is soak in the brine for two days before cutting it in half, and storing it in two smaller containers that fit in the fridge.  I use the same brine to keep the divided cheese moist.

The finished product is a firm, crumbly, yet creamy feta that can be stored for at least 6 months in this manner.  It is great crumbled on top of pizza or cubed into a Greek salad with lots of home preserved black olives!

It is just so simple to make and took me 3 hours from start to press, then about 15 minutes with the brine and putting it in the fridge to mature.  If you want the full recipe, check out this post titled "Feta - Video tutorial".  Enjoy.

Big Cheese

I have been busy making cheese today.  So what is new you probably think to yourselves, you always make cheese.

Well, I have been making big cheeses.  You see, now that I have a 14 litre pot and two cheese presses, I can make double the amount of cheese in the same time frame as it used to take me to make just one.  I am so glad that I "upsized" my equipment, because now I seem to always have cheese at hand, and some left over should friends want to buy some from or to give away as gifts. Nothing says 'I love you' like home made cheese!

Last weekend, I made two Caerphilly cheeses, and the week before that, I made the biggest Parmesan that I have ever made.

The only problem I have is that it has been so cold here of late, that the cheese will not dry and form a rind.  The Caerphilly above, which are the two wheels at the front, have been sitting at room temperature for 7 days, and have only formed a slight rind on the edges.  Because they have been moist, I have had to wash with brine to inhibit mould growth. 

Not so bad though for the Parmesan at the back.  Because it is a brine dipped cheese, the rind forms really easily, with minimal mould formation.  I will wax it this week, as I find this helps it from drying out.  As for the Caerphilly, I will wait for the rind, and then put them in the cheese cave for a few more weeks before vacuum packing them to stop them from aging further.

Today, because it was raining heavily and I couldn't do much outside, I decided to make another big Parmesan.  It took me about 4 hours from milk to press (as shown above), and tomorrow I will brine it for 24 hours.  In ten months it will taste absolutely delicious! 

This morning, Kim found some Feta in the fridge that I had made about 3 months ago, still in the brine and looking very healthy.  I tried a little and found it to be sharp, very edible, with a crumbly texture to the cut, but when spread on toast it was smooth and creamy and delicious.  I remember following my standard recipe for this one, and it just goes to show that if kept submerged in brine in a sealed container, Feta can last for a long time.  Now that we have discovered this, I think I will age all of my Feta for this long!

Feta - Video Tutorial

After a request from Annet who was looking for more information about Feta, I knew that I could fulfil the request easily. She was disappointed at the diminishing quality of commercially made cheese.  What better way to overcome that issue, by making your own Feta!

Feta (Greek: φέτα) is a brined curd cheese traditionally made in Greece. Feta is an aged crumbly cheese, commonly produced in blocks, and has a slightly grainy texture. It is used as a table cheese, as well as in salads (e.g the Greek salad), pastries and in baking. It can also be served cooked or grilled, as part of a sandwich or as a salty alternative to other cheeses in a variety of dishes.




Now what are you waiting for?  Get some milk and get cracking!

Just so you know exactly what I put in it, here is the ingredient list that I used.

Feta:
4 litres full cream milk (1 gallon)

1/4 teaspoon of lipase diluted in 60ml (quarter of a cup) of non-chlorinate water
2.5 gm direct set mesophilic culture
2.5 ml rennet diluted in 60ml of non-chlorinated water
2.5 ml calcium chloride diluted in 60ml of non chlorinate water (if milk is homogenised)

Brine:
2 litres water (boiled)
1/3 cup salt
1/3 cup white vinegar
3 drops calcium chloride
Boil brine for 5 minutes then cool to room temperature before adding finished cheese.

Enjoy this wonderful cheese!

Marinated Feta

From this.....

To this......

Marinated Feta is very simple to make, once you have mastered the art of the cheese itself.  Wash a large jar, then sterilise it and the lid.  This ensures that no bad bacteria start growing in your marinade.

To this marinade, I added a sprig each of rosemary, thyme and oregano,  2 dried  and crumbled birds-eye chilies, and a liberal grinding of black pepper.  Then top it all off with half extra virgin olive oil and half sunflower oil.  If you just use olive oil, it solidifies in the fridge and doesn't look very nice. 

The recipe I followed recommended at least a week in the fridge for the flavours to infuse into the cheese. I  gave it two and it tasted fantastic! 

The only ingredients that were not home grown was the milk in the cheese and the olive oil.  Give me a few years and I might figure out how to milk chickens!  I wonder what cheese will be next?

My First Cheese - Feta

Sunday the 15th February 2009 was a monumental day.  I made my very first cheese! 

All my life I have wanted to give it a go, but never made the time or found the opportunity.  Since trying to live a more sustainable lifestyle, I have seized as many opportunities as I can, and willing to learn new skills where I can.  This golden opportunity was too good to pass up.

The Cheese Making Workshop was held at our local community centre.  The two ladies who ran the workshop were just fabulous.  Dorothy and Loraine made the day a relaxed affair, and no question was too hard to answer.  I could see that between them, they had years of cheese making experience.

So, starting at the beginning, I rocked up at about 0950, after having had to turn around once because I forgot my wallet.  Yes, readers, I was that excited!  I was not the first to arrive, and met most of the other students.  They were are friendly bunch, with 3 men and 8 ladies in the class.  We were asked to pick our preference of cheese recipes, and being a clever lad and having done a little research before hand, I decided to ensure that the fruits of my labour were going to be able to be sampled with in a few days.  Therefore I chose to make Feta.  One lady chose Wensleydale (hush Wallace and Gromit), and would you believe that the majority chose Parmesan.  The reason I was a bit shocked was because Feta takes 2-3 days before you can eat it, Wensleydale 1-3 months before maturity, and Parmesan 9-12 months before it matures!  All worth while, but if I have learnt any thing on my sustainable journey, it is that if you put effort into anything, you must be able to reap the rewards quickly, which then gives you a sense of achievement that pushes you to carry on.  The other thing to take into consideration is that the harder cheeses must mature at a temperature of 10-15C for the entire time.  It is very hard to keep anything at that temp here in summer without a cellar or modified refrigerator which at the time I did not own.

Anyway, enough babbling, here is what I saw when I first arrived.

On the table is a small gas camp stove, a pot with water, and a 20 litre bain marie with 10 litres of full cream milk.  The pot acted as a double boiler.  Next to the spoon is a cute hair net (no photos of me wearing it either) that we had to wear so as not to get hair in the cheese.

It is illegal in Australia to make cheese out of non-pasteurised milk.  Pasteurisation kills certain bacteria in the milk that can breed when the temperature of milk is raised during the cheese making process.  To pasteurise milk, simply bring the temperature up to 68C, hold it there for 1 minute, then cool rapidly.  We were already using store bought milk, so it was already treated.  Next we had to reverse the homogenisation process.  Apparently homogenisation shrinks the milk fat globules, which makes it nearly impossible to make into cheese.  To reverse this process, we added 1 teaspoon of calcium chloride to 2 tablespoons of boiled rainwater which was then added to the milk and stirred for 25 seconds.

I then had to raise the temp of the milk to 32C, and keep it there.  Once at temperature, I got to add 10 grains of Mesophilic starter culture and a quarter teaspoon of lipase powder mixed with 50 ml of boiled rainwater.  Here is the milk at temperature with the starter and lipase mixed in (not very exciting).  You must not let the milk get over 40C or it will kill this type of culture.

At this stage it must ripen for 45 minutes.  The starter and lipase gives the cheese its distinct sharp flavour.  After the time had elapsed, the rennet is added.  The temperature had to be raised again to 32C, and then 2.5ml of rennet is added to 16ml of boiled rainwater, then added to the milk with a quick stir.  At this stage you cannot reheat the milk, because something magical happens.  The milk starts to change composition into curds and whey (Miss Muffett's please stand).  For my cheese this process took about 40 minutes.  I was told not to stir it during the setting.  This is what it looks like when set.  Click to enlarge and you will see where I had to put my sterilised finger in to test the firmness.

Once firm enough, I then had to cut the curd into 1 cm cubes using a whisk.  Basically you gently stab the whisk vertically into the curd until you reach the bottom.  You repeat this all over the curd three times.  Then you leave it to sit for 5 minutes.  Here is the cut curd.

Now the boring part.  You then have to stir every 10 minutes for about 2 minutes for two hours!  You also have to maintain the temperature at 32C again during the process.  It was during this time I decided to buy a cheese making kit, because I was determined to make more types other than Feta.  The kit was $122 and from looking at other cheese making web sites, it was great value.  I believe I managed to make at least 60kg of cheese with the kit ingredients!

This is what it looks like after the two hours.  You will notice that the curds and whey have really separated and the curd sinks to the bottom.

The whey looks a little yellow doesn't it.  I bet you are thinking that this is why some cheeses are yellow.  Not so my friends.  The yellow in most cheeses is a food colouring.  Real cheese is usually off-white!

Next the curds are strained through a cheese cloth and the whey kept for later on.  Don't throw the whey away (that is a mouthful), because you can make something special out of it.  I will show you later.  The cheese (finally) gets returned back to the bain marie and you massage it a little until rubbery.  Here is my rubbery feta.

Now it gets strained for a second time and put into the basket (mould).  Luckily they had a cheese press and we could speed up the process.  Here is my semi finished cheese.

It was still a bit watery, and had a little whey still oozing from it.  I wrapped it in foil for the journey home. 

I said goodbye to my classmates, thanked Dorothy and Loraine for a great class and told them I was coming back in three weeks for the mould cheese course.  They gave me 3 litres of whey to take home.

Upon arrival at home, I placed the Feta on a wire rack to dry.  It must be fairly dry before you brine the cheese.  The tray is to catch any excess whey still trying to escape.

Now for the surprise!   If you add a cup of milk and bring the whey to a temperature of 80-90C and hold it there for 30-50 minutes, the excess protein in the whey coagulates into Ricotta cheese!  What a bonus.  It tastes fantastic as well.  Nice with crackers, but Kim thinks it needs a little salt to sharpen it up.

Back to the Feta.  I left it on the kitchen bench overnight with a vinegar soaked tea towel (rung out tight) covering it all.  This morning it was quite dry and about 50ml of whey was in the drip tray.  

I then added the Feta to the brine solution.  The brine is simply 3 tablespoons of non-iodinised salt to 1 litre of rainwater and bring it to the boil.  Here is the photo from this morning with the Feta in the solution.  The brine must be cold before adding the cheese to it, otherwise the cheese absorbs too much salt.

I used a food grade plastic container, and then put it in the fridge until I got home from work.  My son Ben met me at the door and was so excited that I was home.  Not because he wanted to see his Dad safely home, but to taste Dad's first homemade cheese!  And taste it we did.  It was wonderful and had a firm consistency.  I liken it to a texture in between the softness of a Danish Feta and the crumbliness of a Greek Feta.  In the middle of the two textures and just right.  It was so nice that my wife Kim and I had some more in our home grown garden salad for dinner.  It was a great feeling that I had made or grown everything in the salad bowl!

The feta should last for a few months in the brine solution, as long as I keep it submerged.  To keep it longer you can cut it into 1 cm cubes and place it in some olive oil seasoned with herbs and garlic.  It takes about a week for the flavours to infuse when storing it in this method.

So stay turned over the next few months (and years I hope), as I show you how to make other cheeses that I have made since this initial cheese making workshop.

If you ever get the chance to do a cheese making workshop, I can't recommend it highly enough.  It was a great day, fantastic fun and very fulfilling. I have never looked back since!