Making Queso Fresco (Fresh Cheese)

This past week we had some extra milk.  Our cows were eating some fresh green grass in the yard and we saw a sharp increase in production.  Tricia had an idea on what to do with some of the excess - she'd make some cheese.  We hadn't made any in a while and were excited to make some more.  Tricia uses The Home Cheese Making book by Ricki Carroll.

Queso Fresco is a Mexican farm cheese that is made from raw cow milk. Tricia found the recipe in the book and followed it.

Queso Fresco is a relatively easy cheese to make.  You don't have to age it.  You can eat it right away.  Tricia took a gallon of Clarabelle's milk and warmed it to 90 degrees.  The bacterial culture was added to acidify the milk.  Then the rennet (enzyme) was added to make a separation take place between the solid curds and liquid whey.  Let it set until the curds make a clean break.  Then cut the curd into cubes and bring the temperature up to 95 degrees gradually while stirring.  Let the curds sit undisturbed for 5 minutes and then drain off the whey.  Add salt and keep at 95 degrees for 35 minutes.  Put your curds in a mold lined with cheesecloth.  Press at 35 pounds pressure for 6 hours.

To do this, we pulled out our cheese press that our friend, Dale Smith made for us.  This is quite a fancy rig.  Essentially, this device presses the whey out of the cheese.  Varying weights are placed in the cradle to the right to achieve the correct pressure each cheese calls for.

By using different settings, specific pounds of pressure is applied.  There are different settings depending on the type of cheese you are making and whether the cheese is softer or harder.

The press pushes a disk downward and the resulting pressure pushes the whey out of the curds.  The whey is collected in a container beneath the press.

When done, we pull out a nice wheel of Queso Fresco...

Tricia cut a wedge out of the queso fresco.

Finally, for supper last night, Tricia made envueltos (enveloped or wrapped).  They are similar to a chicken enchilada with a tomato gravy and homemade Queso Fresco grated on top.

It was delicious!  We'll be trying making a different variety of cheese soon prior to drying off the cows.