Aging Goat Cheese

Some goat cheeses in various stages of development.

Goat cheese

Six gallons of raw Alpine goat's milk


Look at that virgin white color. Goat milk is white because goats produce milk with the yellow beta-carotene converted to a colorless form of vitamin A.


Adding the rennet


Mixing the rennet


Dry-salting

Tomme

Here is my so far all time favorite. Made on August 7, it was about 50 days old when I first tried it. It has a moist and creamy texture and a grassy and nutty milky flavor.

Stilton style result

A few weeks ago I cut the Stilton I made on April 29. I had changed the recipe a little because the cheese I had made previously from the same recipe turned out to dry. This has resulted in a white Stilton. There was no air in the cheese even though I poked it so the Penicillium roqueforti did not develop. Here and there I can see the vague presence of the mold. Nevertheless, it is a very fresh tasting cheese, not as salty as a blue cheese can be but but certainly creamy and somewhere, you can taste a lingering blue.

Cheese in the Dryer

Being short a proper aging box and lacking the time to make one, I have temporary reverted to using a unused dryer as an aging cave. My other aging cave in Brooklyn is still to warm, I am longing for cooler temperatures. So far it has worked alright, but practically it is a little bit of a hassle to shelf them. And with all these heat producing cheeses in the dryer, it is getting pretty warm inside the drum. Therefore I have been putting ice packs in it as can be seen in the third picture.

Goat's Milk

I am very excited. I have found a source of goat's milk. Although the goats are almost at the end of their lactation cycle, I have been able to make some goat cheese. I have been using some tomme recipes for goat's milk because I am not ready yet to make more traditional type bloomy rind goat cheeses. It is to warm and currently my time is too limited to apply the longer process of making these cheeses. But with plenty of preparation time this winter, I shall be ready coming spring to jump into that most exciting process.

3rd Wheel

This was the third cheese I made. I made this cheese mid March and finished it a few weeks ago. I made it after a recipe from David B. Frankhauser's website, a great site to start from: http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Cheese/Cheese_5_gallons/CHEESE_5gal_00.htm
I used yoghurt as a starter and it turned out very well. I love the natural rind. It was a little dry, the curds were cooked to warm as shown in my notes. Nevertheless, it was definitely tasty and appreciated all around.

Another Gouda or two

I have made some more Goudas. Here are a few images of the process. I added some thermophilic starter to this batch. We'll what this will do to the taste.

Tommes and Goudas

What more is there to say...

Washing the Goudas

Over the last few weeks, I have been washing the Goudas with a light salt solution. I decided not to wax them but let the cheeses develop a natural rind. It occurred to me that traditionally these cheeses were never waxed or plasticified. I wonder when this started. My grandmother washed and turned them daily until the rind had developed into a natural protection.

Whey pap

In the old days, in Holland, and I assume many other countries, some whey was used to make baked goods and deserts, before it went to the pigs. The whey is still full of minerals and nutrition.
So, after the Ricotta, I decided to make some whey pap. My mother was visiting from Holland and she told me that her mother used to make it once in a while after making cheese.
Basically, pap is a sort of pudding made of grains boiled in milk or in this case whey. I used rye flakes, buckweat, flour and raisins. Top this with some cinnamon and maple syrup, and you have a delicious and nutritional desert. Or breakfast if you like.

Whey Ricotta

From the whey I had left over of making the Gouda, I decided to try to make some Ricotta. I had around 10 gallon of whey, so that should result in a nice amount of Ricotta.
I heated the whey to 200F, added some vinegar and the remaining albuminous proteins started to precipitate out. I lined a colander with cheesecloth and ladled the solids in there, let it strain and cool for while, tied the cloth and hung it to drain.
This turned out to be some fantastic Ricotta.