How to Make Goat Cheese

Hi, I'm Tricia, an Organic Gardener. I grow organically for a healthy and safe food supply for a clean and sustainable environment for an enjoyable and rewarding experience Thanks to Aurora, we're gonna make some goat cheese today the goats gave us a lot of milk this morning so I'm going to make goat cheese with this goat cheese kit from the kit, i'll be using the direct set chevre culture and the butter muslin additionally you'll need a dairy thermometer, slotted spoon colander, large bowl or pot one gallon of goat's milk and a large stainless steel pot make sure you're not using any aluminum pans unchipped enamel, glass or stainless steel are great for cheese making start by boiling some water we're going to sterilize the utensils for about twenty minutes in boiling water remove your utensils and plug your sink and then you're gonna pour your boiling water into the sink add the goats milk to the empty pot set the pot into the hot water in the sink stir the milk top to bottom like this heat the milk to eighty to eighty-six degrees fahrenheit when it comes up to temperature just remove it from the water and then we're gonna add the culture sprinkle the chevre direct set culture over the top of the milk let the culture set for two minutes to rehydrate this culture has rennet already included stir in the culture top-to-bottom thoroughly to make sure the culture is evenly distributed cover the pot and then set it aside for twenty to twenty-four hours keeping it in a warm part of the room during this period a cool oven is a good place to leave it undisturbed when you see a clear separation between the whey and the solids your milk is ready it's time to separate the curds from the whey set a colander inside of a large bowl and then line it with the muslin that comes in your goat cheese kit gently ladling your curds into the muslin having this bowl under the colander allows you to save the whey which you can give to your dogs, your cats you can feed it to your chickens. You can even feed your tomatoes with it now we're gonna drain the curd tie up your butter muslin with kitchen twine if you tie it with bunny ears it makes it easy to hang now we need to drain the curds for six to twelve hours hang the cheese over a large pot to drain once your curds have reached the desired consistency you can mold them using these mold that come in the cheese kit or you can form them into loose logs by hand i'm gonna be adding about a teaspoon of salt this is not for taste this is part of the recipe so don't leave this step out spread out the cheese and work in the salt and the form it into a log if you leave the salt out the bacteria will continue to grow and it will cause the cheese to have an off flavor if you want to freeze your cheese do it before you add the salt I'm gonna form this cheese into two logs so then i can flavor it with two different seasonings this type of cheese is called chevre and chevre is the french word for goat nothing like fresh herbs for flavoring your cheese if your chevre has been frozen, thaw it and then salt it and then add the herbs using fruits and herbs from the garden this log is flavored with dried meyer lemon rind rosemary sage basil parsley and marjoram this recipe calls for moroccan herbs i've mixed black pepper cardamom cinnamon cloves ginger cumin and ground coriander you can either add your herbs while you're mixing the cheese or you can add an herb crust on the outside like i've done either way they'll last for about two weeks in the refrigerator. enjoy them and grow organic for life!