Cheese, Please

Yesterday, Judy (a co-worker) and I went to a cheese making class in a town called Nampa, which is about 20 miles away.  I'd always thought it might be interesting to learn how to make cheese, so when Judy invited me, I happily tagged along.

The class was held in the cheese maker, Debra's, kitchen.  She and her family also operate a store selling beer, wine, and cheese making supplies from their home. 

We made two types of cheese, Apple Cider Vinegar Cheese and Queso Fresco (pronounced 'kayso freskco').  The vinegar cheese was really simple.  The Queso Fresco was also quite simple, but a bit more fiddly and I'm not sure I can describe properly how to do it.  It's a Mexican style of fresh cheese, and actually, that's what its name translates to in English.  They're both soft cheeses, which is probably why they're so straightforward.  I'll give you the vinegar cheese recipe, and then explain what we did.

Ingredients:
1/2 - 1 gallon pasteurized whole milk (I'll let you do the conversion)
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

Instructions:
Heat milk to 185 degrees F. Add vinegar and mix thoroughly. Turn off heat.

Cover and let sit for 15 minutes.  You are looking for a clear separation of curds and whey.  If the milk has not set, add a little more vinegar until it does set.

Pour the curds into a colander lined with butter muslin. Drain until desired consistency.

Remove curds from butter muslin.  Add salt and herbs to taste if desired.

It's now ready to eat, or you can keep it refrigerated for 1-2 weeks.

Here are the things I learned about this ridiculously easy cheese, along with some basic cheese making principles:

1.  1/2 gallon of milk makes a decent amount of cheese, although the quantities we got varied from person to person.  If you want to make lots, use a whole gallon (you use the same amount of vinegar).  We used plain old supermarket milk.  I think with the more complicated cheeses - cheddar and such - you'd want to get your hands on raw milk if you can.  Apparently ultra-pastuerised (not sure if you have that - it's mostly used on organic milk here), will not work.  They heat the milk to the point where all the little greeblies that actually make the cheese are killed off.  Oh the humanity!

2. Raise the milk temperature slowly so it doesn't scorch.  We made ours in double boilers, which is the way to go with this one. Most recipes will specify whether or not to use a double boiler.  If the milk does scorch, make sure you don't scrape the bottom of the pan while you're stirring it.  And if you get a skin, just remove it.  The temperature is really important, so if you go over, let it cool back down before you add the vinegar.

3. Use a slotted spoon to pour the vinegar into the milk.  Pour the vinegar over the spoon and move the spoon around the pan as you pour to help distribute the vinegar evenly.

3. Use a slotted spoon to stir, and stir slowly.  Hold the spoon vertically and work from side to side, rather than holding the spoon flat.  Can't remember why, but this one was important. Stir until the colour from the vinegar has been fully incorporated; you'll see the curds start to separate almost immediately.

4. The whey should be that clear yellowy/green colour I'm sure you're all familiar with, not milky.

5.  Butter muslin turns out to be a fairly fine muslin. Dampen it before you use it.  Oh, and if you've washed it in detergent, boil it for a bit with some bicarb to make sure all the soap residue is gone. You don't want it to be so fine the whey can't drain through, but not so coarse that the curds drain along with the whey.  Apparently old linen pillowcases work well.

5.  We spooned the curds into the colander and then poured the whey in, rather than dumping it all at once.  That can change the consistency.  You can use the whey to make ricotta... who knew?

6.  We lifted and turned the curds using the muslin, to make sure all the whey was gone.  Some people let theirs drain for quite a while to make a drier cheese, while some went with a softer consistency.  It's  a personal choice.  The cheese doesn't taste like much of anything at this stage, except for maybe a hint of vinegar (which not everyone could taste).

7.  We split our cheese into two batches to make two different flavours, and this is where we added salt to taste.  I over-salted mine, but it's still pretty tasty. I used black pepper, onion flakes and chillie flakes in one, and an Italian herb mix in the other. The important thing is that you absolutely must use non-iodised salt.  And this applies to all cheese making.  The iodine will ruin your cheese.

8.  If you're going to eat the cheese straight away, you can mix whatever fresh herbs and spices you'd like into it (tarragon, lemon zest and pepper comes to mind).  Otherwise, you need to use dried.  The fresh stuff will make the cheese go all gluey and unpleasant after a while.  Judy put honey in hers (along with a little salt), which I thought was a good idea.  You could serve it on crackers with fresh strawberries and nuts, or something.  It's pretty much like a dip in consistency.

And there you have it, a really simple cheese!

The Queso Fresco was more complicated.  We used rennet and something called mesophilic starter to get the curds to form. It had to go through a few cooking processes, and we had to cut the curds (they formed a mass that looked like silken tofu) to release the whey.  

Interestingly enough, even though we were all using the same milk from the same store, we had very different results.  Some people's curds set just fine, while others' did not.  This is fairly common, and leads me to believe that with cheese, as with all other cooking, learning how to rescue a disaster is an important skill!

We got to sample a couple of cheeses that Debra had made.  One was Monterey Jack, which is a mild, firm, inoffensive kind of cheese.  It was awful!  It tasted like it had fermented somehow, and was very bitter.  It was a good example of how cheese can go wrong, though.

We also got to sample some Cotswald cheese, which is a much firmer cheese.  It was about four months old, I think, and I thought it was absolutely delicious.

I'm now pondering whether or not I want to take the Farmhouse Cheddar class.  It's more expensive, and will require me to invest some dollars in cheese presses and the like.  I'm not sure I want to do that, at this stage.  It was interesting, and I learned a lot, but I'm not convinced I want to get that carried away with it.  We'll see; at the very least, I have learned some new skills, and got to spend some time with some interesting people.