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.

Our first attempt at making Cheddar Cheese

Prior posts from December shows how we made a basic cheese.  Once we had a few wheels of those made, Tricia decided to try her hand at making cheddar cheese.  Our basic cheese was okay, but not great for eating just a slice at a time.  We use the basic cheese primarily for cooking.  For making cheddar, Tricia used the recipe from the Home Cheese Making book by Ricki Carroll.  It contains instructions and recipes for homemade cheeses of many types.  It is a very good book!

Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll

Here is the recipe for Traditional Cheddar that Tricia used to make it.

Tricia had made and frozen the Mesophilic Starter a few days earlier.  Mesophilic starter is a blend of lactic acid producing bacteria for making low temperature cheeses.  When she made it, she poured into ice cube trays and each cube is about 2 tablespoons of starter.  

Mesophilic Starter

The recipe for cheddar uses 2 gallons of raw milk and calls for 4 ounces or 1/2 cup of Mesophilic starter.

Letting the starter come to room temperature

We pour the 2 gallons of raw milk into a large pot and we warm the milk to 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

Warming the milk

Once you've reached your desired temperature, add the starter.  Let it ripen or sit for 45 minutes.  This makes the milk more acidic.

Adding the starter

Now, brace yourselves.  There are lots of steps.  It is almost overwhelming.  I get tired writing about the process and wonder how people figured all this out!  After it has ripened for 45 minutes, bring your temperature back to 86 degrees.  The thermometer below shows the temperature is right.  Add the rennet and stir as shown in previous cheese making posts.  The rennet makes the curds separate from the whey. Let it sit for 45 minutes to an hour until the curds have a clean break.

About 86 degrees

Cut your curds into cubes and allow them to sit for 5 minutes. Then heat the curds to 100 degrees while gently stirring.  Maintain this temperature for 30 minutes while continuing to stir.  Allow them to sit for 20 minutes. Pour the curds and whey into a colander to remove whey.  Put the curds back into the pot and allow to sit for 15 minutes.  Now, take the curds out and put them on a cutting board and cut curds into 3 inch slices. Finally, put them back into a pot that is sitting in a 100 degree water bath and maintain temperature for 2 hours.

Break the curd slices into 1 inch cubes, maintaining 100 degree temperature.  Stir every 10 minutes for 30 minutes, but don't squeeze them. Remove from sink, adding salt and stir gently.  Line a 2 pound cheese mold with cheesecloth and place the curds into the mold.

Nice looking curds!

Put the curds into a cheese press and press at 10 pounds pressure for 15 minutes. Remove the cheese from the mold and pull away cheesecloth and turn the cheese over, re-wrap and press at 40 pounds pressure for 12 hours.

Pressing the cheddar cheese in our cool Cheese Press that a fried made for us

Repeat the process, but now press at 50 pounds pressure for 24 hours.

Pressing again

Remove the cheese from the mold and then remove the cloth.  Air dry the cheese at room temperature for 2 to 5 days, or until dry to the touch.  Now, wax the cheese. We used beeswax that we got from our beekeeper friend.  

2 pound wheel of Cheddar Cheese!

Now we just have to be patient.  We age the cheese at 50 - 55 degrees for 3 -12 months.  It develops a sharper flavor as it ages.  Tick tock, tick tock...

Making Basic Cheese (Part 1 Culturing & Separating Curds from Whey)

Three cows in milk will give you a LOT of dairy products.  Besides milk there are other value added products like, butter, creme fraiche, whipped cream, kefir, buttermilk, and various types of cheeses.  Let's make some basic cheese!

The first thing we do when making basic cheese is adding a culture to the milk.  The culture we are adding is buttermilk that we've frozen in ice cube trays.  You use 1 1/2 to 2 Tablespoons of buttermilk to 2 gallons of raw milk.  We thaw out the buttermilk.

Thawing out a couple cubes of frozen buttermilk

We sterilize the pot we will be making the cultured milk in by boiling about a half inch of water for 5 minutes and allowing it to steam.

A squeaky clean pot

Here are two gallons of fresh raw milk that we got from milking Daisy and Rosie. We've just gotten it out of the refrigerator.

Fresh, rich milk

Once the pot has been sterilized, we pour the milk in the pot and warm it until it reaches 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

Bringing the milk up to 68 degrees

Then we add 1 1/2 to 2 Tablespoons of buttermilk to the warm milk.  We allow the milk to culture by letting it sit for 8 hours at room temperature.  After 8 hours warm the milk up to 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

Adding buttermilk, allowing it to sit for 8 hours and then warming it up

Now we add 8 drops of animal rennet to half a cup of water.  Animal rennet comes from the stomach lining of young calves and will cause the milk to separate into curds and whey.

Adding 8 drops of animal rennet to water

Once the milk is warmed to 86 degrees, pour the rennet water mixture into the warm cultured milk.  Stir and allow to sit for an hour.

Adding rennet to the cultured milk

In an hour, you want to test for a "clean break" by inserting your finger at the edge of the pot.  It should be firm and not leave gooey stuff on your finger.  If it does allow it to sit a little longer.

Checking for a clean break

Once you have a clean break, you want to cut the curds with a knife into half inch cubes by cutting in one direction and then spinning the pot and cutting in the other.

Cutting the curds

Then stir the curds with your hands and start slowly heating it to 102 degrees while stirring.   

Look at those nice curds!

Now cut the larger cubes into smaller ones while continuing to stir.          

Cutting them into smaller pieces

Stir for about 15 minutes after you heat it to the desired temperature.  You'll notice the curds start to shrink so that they look like scrambled eggs.

The 'scrambled eggs' look

Now turn off the heat and let the curds sink to the bottom for a few minutes and then pour off the whey into another container.

Pouring off the whey

Once you get toward the end, you might want to use a colander to keep your curds from pouring into the whey.  What to do with all this whey?  Well, you could make ricotta cheese with it.  Perhaps we'll show that later.  Another thing we do is feed it to our hens.  They love it and it is full of protein and probiotics (beneficial bacteria).  You can also use whey as a preservative when lacto-fermenting vegetables.  We do this when we make our sauerkraut and gingered carrots.

Where there's a will, there's a WHEY!

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2 of making basic cheese as we illustrate how a bunch of gooey curds transform into cheese.