Little Green Cheese

Cheese making at home with Gavin Webber the Cheeseman

Lucy’s Feta or Chabichou

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Over on my other blog, The Greening of Gavin, I interviewed Lucy House who runs a free range farm in Baralaba, Queensland.

She blogs at Healthy Farming Healthy Food.

During the interview she mentioned that she milks four cows daily, and makes her own cheese once a week.  She makes a really tasty cheese loosely based on Chabichou, but without a ripening period.

Lucy has kindly shared her recipe and method below.

I believe this is actually called Chabichou, which is a fresh cheese. However, I either put it into a brine or I cut it into chunks and marinate it in oil and herbs.

Start this in the morning and it will carry over into the next day.

Chabichou

 

Lucy’s Feta/ Chabichou

Ingredients

  • Milk – I do 4-5 litres and get three cheese baskets, which gives about 250g fresh cheese each.
  • Flora Danica (Multiple Strain Mesophilic) starter – use ¼ teaspoon to 20 litres of milk
  • Rennet- 1-2 drops single strength rennet to every litre of milk

Method

  1. Warm milk to 20-30° Celsius (I use it straight from the cow)
  2. Add starter and let sit for half an hour.
  3. Add rennet and stir.
  4. Incubate for 10-16 hours at room temperature. The curd will be very firm and there will be a small amount of whey on the top of the curd.
  5. Place cheese cloth into hoops/baskets on top of a draining rack. Carefully place “slices” of curd into the baskets until they are full.
  6. Leave hoops to drain overnight – you will need a large dish to catch all the whey. If there’s too much for the baskets, place into a cheesecloth/bag. This is basically quark.
  7. The next day, sprinkle 1/8 teaspoon cheese salt on top of each cheese and leave for approximately 2 hours.
  8. Remove the cheese, turn over and sprinkle more salt on. Leave another 2 hours.
  9. This can be consumed as a fresh cheese and eaten within 2 weeks or for longer keeping, put into a brine or place in oil with herbs.

Brined cheese – after a week or two, this is a very crumbly style feta.

Marinated cheese – stays very creamy and can be used as a spread or used in salads etc.

By all accounts, everyone at her place loves this cheese.  I will have to try it out during my next cheese making session!

Manchego Style Cheese Video Tutorial

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This Manchego style cheese is made with cow’s milk.  Normally Manchego is a cheese made in the La Mancha region of Spain from the milk of sheep of the manchega breed.

Manchego style cheese
Queso tipo Manchego (Manchego style cheese)

However, this version is a close replica of the original that can be created by the home cheese maker.  Normally it is marketed in North America as Queso tipo Manchego.  I have not seen it for sale here in Australia.

I have adopted and modified this recipe that I found online, however I have kept to the traditional recipe and the cheese is salted via brining.  It can be matured by rubbing it with olive oil to allow for a natural rind.  I found that it was drying out too quickly for my liking so after two weeks of air drying, I vacuum packed the cheese.

Here is the direct link to the tutorial; https://youtu.be/dUyuiVno_EE

It matures for 2 months @ 13°C (55°F) in the cheese fridge.

For cheese making kits, supplies, and equipment to make this tasty cheese, visit our cheese supply store Little Green Workshops.

Until next time curd nerds, Keep Calm & Make Cheese!

Leicester Style Cheese Video Tutorial

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Similar to Cheddar, but much milder, Leicester style cheese is a delicious alternative.

Leicester is a hard cheese is normally coloured with annatto and can be dark yellow to red in colour.  This is where the term Red Leicester comes from.  It was traditionally made in the shape of a flat wheel, so I used a 165mm width mould and adapted the recipe to 8 litres (2 gal) of milk.

Annatto cheese colouring.

This video uses a traditional cheddar process, including cheddaring the curds, but is lighter on the colouring.

To make Red Leicester, just add 4 drops of annatto per litre of milk.  For this recipe you would need to add 32 drops diluted in half a cup of non-chlorinated water.

When making the Leicester Style Cheese you may be looking for cheese supplies that I use in this video.  If so, please visit our cheese supply store at Little Green Workshops.

Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for a Manchego cheese video coming soon.

Until next time curd nerds, Keep Calm & Make Cheese!

Little Green Workshops