What to do with 5 gallons of Raw Milk?/Our Cheese Making Begins!

With all the raw milk we picked up from Farmer X, Gail and I formulated a cheese making plan. We would attempt to make Queso Blanco, 30-Minute Mozzarella, Fromage Blanc, Whole Milk Ricotta, and maybe even some butter!

Below I am going to share the recipe for the Queso Blanco. For the rest of the cheeses I'm providing some pictures and commentary, but no recipes. I encourage anybody who is interested in beginning cheese making to visit Ricki Carroll's website where there are some great recipes, tips, books, DVDs , and all the rennet, cultures and supplies you will need to get started. A tip for beginners: The website sells a few different kits for basic cheese making and are a great starting point for beginners!

We decided to start with one of the most basic cheeses: Queso Blanco

The recipe is pretty simple:

1/2 gallon of milk

1/4 cup of vinegar

Butter Muslin

Heat milk to 185 F (stirring constantly to avoid scorching). When the temperature reaches 185 F slowly stir in the vinegar and raise the temperature to 200 F. As you raise it you will see the milk begin coagulating. At 200 F the milk should be completely curdled and you will be able to easily see the curds & whey separating. Pour the curds into a colander lined with butter muslin. and the butter muslin filled with curds for a few hours until it stops dripping. When it's done dripping cut the curds into cubes or slices.

The cheese looks just like tofu, but tastes so rich and sticks to your teeth when you chew it. Like tofu, this Queso Blanco takes on the taste of the spices it is cooked with, making it ideal for something like stir fry.

You can see the process in the below 5 photographs including the final product - Queso Blanco cubes tossed in garlic infused olive oil with rosemary!

(waiting for the temperature to rise and stirring the curds)

(draining & hanging the curds)

(the final product!)

Next up we made a 30-minute Mozzarella.

Here are some pictures of the 30-minute Mozzarella process as well as the final product (which actually took closer to 45 minutes, but we are still beginners).

(draining the curds and testing to see if the Mozzarella is ready. it wasn't quite firm enough in this picture)

(final product: an 18-ounce ball of Mozzarella)

Next up was a whole milk ricotta. Another simple cheese: Citric Acid is the key to this one.

(Left: the curds being separated from the whey. Right: curds hanging and draining.)

Next up is fromagina, a wonderful combination of Fromage Blanc & Marscapone. This cheese was time consuming, but the time consuming part is in the wait. Once the milk is heated to proper temperature the culture is added and the milk is left to set at room temperature for 12-24 hours. After they set the curd is ladled into a colander lined with butter muslin and hung to dry for an additional 4-6 hours. Once dried to the correct consistency I added fresh chives from the garden to give this a nice spring feel:

Finally, Gail decided she would try her hand at making butter. She skimmed the cream off about a gallon or so of milk. If you look at the below photo you can see the cream has risen to the top of the milk, just at the bottom of the vertical lines on this plastic bottle:

(cream rises to the top in a bottle of raw milk)

She shook up the cream for a while by hand and separated some of the buttermilk off, after that she did most of the mixing with an electric mixer until she had a nice creamy consistency. At this point she separated out the remaining buttermilk and returned the whipped butter to a jar and briefly shook it until it solidified. She ended up producing about 5-6 0z of butter and nearly 12oz of buttermilk.

The first photo is of the clump of butter fresh from the jar perfectly formed. The second shows the startling difference in color between the butter and buttermilk!

All in all I would say our first attempt and cheese making has been a wild success!

Cheese Making 101 Class & Our Raw Milk Journey

A few weeks ago Gail and I had the pleasure of attending one of Ricki Carroll's day long Cheese Making 101 classes. Ricki has been running a mail order cheese making supply business since 1978 and is affectionately known as Ricki the Cheese Queen. She is featured in chapter 9 'Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast 'of Barbra Kingslover's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle as well as the supplemental recipes to that chapter. Her Cheese Making 101 workshops, which are taught in her Massachusetts home often have waiting lists longer then the 4o person-plus capacity of the classes and are generally sold out months in advance.

Over the course of an afternoon Gail, myself, and 40 others learned the basic concepts and ideas of beginners cheese making. Over the 7 hours we learned to make Farmhouse Cheddar, Queso Blanco, Whole Milk & Whey Ricotta, a 30-minute Mozzarella, Fromage Blanc, Creme Fraiche, and Marscapone. We indulged in countless samples of fresh made still warm soft cheeses and yogurts while we learned basic techniques to take home and start making our own cheeses.

We also learned the differences between raw, pasteurized, and ultra pasteurized milk in color, texture, and the differences to take into account when using them to make cheese. Here is a great shot of Ricki and her partner Jamie showing us 2 different methods for their 30-minute Mozzarella with a raw milk and a pasteurized milk:

Notice the teaching table and it's ingenious design. The overhead mirror allowed for everyone in the class to see exactly what we should be looking for in terms of curd formation as we watched the various cheeses get made. At the end of the class we purchased some cheese making supplies of our own so Gail and I could return home and make some soft cheeses as a way to get comfortable with the process.

We also decided if we wanted to make soft cheese we should try to acquire some raw milk. Current Massachusetts law calls for raw milk laws in Massachusetts are fairly strict. Raw milk cannot be sold if it is older then 5 days. Each container has to be labeled 'raw cow's milk' as well as a warning stating 'Raw milk is not pasteurized. Pasteurization destroys organisms that may be harmful to human health.' A similar sign must be placed where the raw milk is sold, which to date can only be directly on a farm, no retail sale of raw milk is permitted, even at farmer's markets. Farmers selling more then 20 quarts a day must obtain a vendor's license from the nearest town milk inspector, and any farm, no matter how small is legally required to obtain a certificate of registration from the Commissioner of Food and Agriculture.

I do not exclusively drink raw milk, and I don't believe I plan on doing so, but I feel that people should be afforded the choice to drink whatever kind of milk they want, and have easier access to raw milk if they choose to consume it. I think many states, including Massachusetts are overly cautious with raw milk producers. People the world over have been drinking raw milk for generations, and though it can make some people sick, I do not think there is a real danger to allow consumers to make their own educated choices.

Gail and I wanted to start making cheese, and wanted our first experiments to be with raw milk because from the class it seemed that the best results came from cheeses made with raw milk, we also wanted to support a small local farmer if we could. Gail remembered the person who sold her the beautiful new kitchen cabinets mentioned he was what amounted to a hobby farmer. He didn't raise livestock or produce for profit, but more for fun and to provide some very local, very fresh food for his family and friends. Gail contacted him to see if we could arrange a visit and to purchase some raw milk from him.

Per his request I am not using his name or location. Farmer X is not licensed in any capacity and out of respect for his desire for privacy I won't out him. This past Saturday Gail and I took a drive to Farmer X's house, where we saw his laying chickens, the chickens he raises for food, and his 3 cows. A pair of Jersey-Holstein mixes for milk and a Jersey-Holstein/Angus young bull which he is raising for beef.

Here are 2 great shots of Gail and I with the 2 Jersey-Holsteins and one of the young Jersey-Holstein/Angus bull:

We got to hang out with the 3 cows and learn about how they are raised (pastured right behind Farmer X's house!!) along with our very own up close anatomy and physiology lessons. After meeting the cows we headed inside to sample some milk, chocolate milk and fill up the containers we brought with milk, most of it fresh that morning, and some from the past few days. We departed with 5 gallons of delicious raw milk and a dozen multi colored eggs.

A huge thanks to Farmer X for opening up his home to us and showing us his beautiful home and animals . Thanks to his cows and milking efforts we were able to start our cheese making in style.

Stay tuned to the next post to see what came out of the 5 gallons of milk we took home!!