Be Ye Separate

Say Cheeeeeeeese!

Blessings!

   We attended our 4H Goat Clinic this past Saturday. It was an all day ordeal. I must say that we were pleasantly exhausted by the end of the day too!:P Actually I wasn't too keen on going in the first place but the girls need to attend as many as they are able for their 4H credit and it sure doesn't hurt to learn something, or in this case, to share some knowledge as well:)

   There were several folks from our Dairy Goat Association there where I and my girls are members. We had one of our ladies talk about Herd Management, HSB's own CaraDD gave demonstration and information on health and Injections, and the family that set it all up gave us wonderful information and demonstrations too. The father talked on raising, breeding and such and his daughter who is now in college but spent her growing up years in 4H and FFA talked about breeding and gave great visuals and demonstrations (with a beanie baby goat:P) on aiding in difficult births etc. The last (and my least favorite) her father talked about and demonstrated banding and disbudding. Boy can those babies scream:(

   Two of the other ladies from our DGA gave demonstrations on soap making and cheese making:) This particular post is about the cheese:) I have never made cheese before and have been a little hesitant on trying it but after yesterday I'm ready, excited and even a little impatient to get started:)

   What we ended up with was Mozzarella. I was surprised and thrilled that we could eat it right away! Being married to a Sicilian, mozzarella is a way of life around here:P Anyway, I had no idea that you could eat it within minutes of finishing it! Oh YUM!

   First you have your kettle of goat milk warmed. It's important that you make this in a stainless steel pot NOT ALUMINUM! It would still make cheese but the acids in the cheese making process will pull a huge amount of the aluminum into the cheese and renders it unedible. Nuff said:)You then add a bit of salt to it and the citric acid. It almost immediately will begin to coagulate. I was told that this is the beginning of the "fermenting" process that the milk has to go through in order to become the wonderful treat we looked forward to:) Here you can see the curdling just seconds after adding the citric acid.This is brought back up to temperature. As soon as it reaches the desired temperature the rennet is added to it. It comes in both a powdered and a liquid form. In this case she used the liquid. She mixed a small amount in a 1/4 cup of water before adding it to the milk.

Within just a few minutes the milk began to curdle at a furious pace. It wasn't even 5 minutes before it looked like this...I know...EW!:P I was always taught that when milk looks like this you don't even bother to open the container...just walk it out to the rubbish and pitch it!:P I resisted the temptation to grab it and run for the nearist bin8^D

   The mixture was brought back up to the desired temperature and within about 30 minutes it was turning a nasty yellow looking liquid and all the curd sunk to the bottom. This was then turned out into a collandar draped with some cheese cloth.Some of the curd was removed and set aside for us to taste...I LOVE cheddar curds but I had never tried Mozzarella curd...it was DELICIOUS! And it tasted like Mozzarella!:POnce the curd had drained enough, it was turned into another pot with a smaller portion of the original liquid to reheat again to the desired temperature.After the cheese begins to clump together more aggressively the whey is poured out, leaving only a small amount of it with the curd to not allow the cheese to burn to the bottom of the pan and keep the cheese moist while it balls.Once the cheese begins to ball it starts looking a bit like wet playdoughAt this point the process goes quite quickly. You must knead it with a wooden spoon for a bit until it doesn't crack or try to separate in any way, not to mention that it's terribly hot at this point.Once it's ready, you must knead this ball of goo:P Remember it's been cooking so it's very hot to the touch. At this point the cheese is dull and very soft like warm taffy. It pulls the same way too! You need to stretch it and fold it and stretch it some more.

Do this until it's nice and shiney...It's very elastic at first and stretches well. After a few minutes it gets harder and harder to pull without tearing the cheese. When you feel it's shiney enough and tough enough you simply ball it up and wrap it in the cheese cloth or put it in something small like a cup or bowl and pack it down. Let it sit for awhile until it's not so hot and perhaps even a little cool and it's ready to eat!

   I must say it was absolutely delicious! I love Mozzarella cheese and the girls and I are planning on making lots of it! Did you know that string cheese IS Mozzarella?:P You can stretch and stretch and make small lengths of it and let it get cold. Then the children (or you) can just peel away:)

   I hope you enjoyed walking this journey with me:) Have a very blessed week!

God be with thee!

Sister Lori

thank you!

{ 00:15, Monday, April 28, 2008 } { Posted by fcusick }

I want to get milk goats but my family complains they don't like goat milk or it's cheese. But my family loves mozzarella (I am sicilian too).

Thank you!
Flossie

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{ 08:45, Monday, April 28, 2008 } { Posted by GypsyFarmGirl }

What a neat experiance, thank you for sharing, now I am hungry I got the crackers!

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{ 13:28, Monday, April 28, 2008 } { Posted by Kitty }

That was very interesting. I have never seen that before. I love Mozzeralla cheese too, especially fried. Ummm good. thanks for sharing with us..........Kitty

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{ 17:36, Monday, April 28, 2008 } { Posted by reginaclarejane }

This was so interesting! Thanks for all the great pictures, too! I am new to homesteadblogger and already I have met some fascinating women!
Posts like this are truly inspiring!

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{ 20:35, Monday, April 28, 2008 } { Posted by meme21713 }

thanks for the lesson...quite interesting...i love moz. cheese...i would of thought there was more to making it than that...we learn new things through our blogging friends daily......Debbie

Thanks

{ 11:31, Wednesday, April 30, 2008 } { Posted by candy }

I have been wanting to try my hand at making cheese, you make it look so easy. Thanks for the great lesson.

~~~It was easy. Far easier than I imagined. I didn't make it myself, I just took the pictures but it was great getting to ask questions and see it first hand. The gal that was making the cheese is one of the ladies from our Dairy Goat Association. Next to her was another woman making soap. It was a great day:)
God be with thee!
Sister Lori

Edited by SisterLori on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 13:47