How to make cottage cheese using rennet: perfect for raw milk!

I continue to explore different things I can make at home that I typically buy at the store. Cottage cheese has been on the list of things to try for quite a while, but I finally gave it a whorl about a month ago. So glad I did, because now that I know how easy it is to make it's become a regular at our home.


Like most cheeses, for every gallon of milk you use, you'll have almost a gallon of whey left over from the cheese making process. I keep the whey in the pot I used to make the cottage cheese in and then the next day heat it up to make fresh ricotta cheese, which is delicious spread on a piece of toast for a breakfast sandwich. Check out my post on how to make ricotta. It's very easy and well worth the little effort!

I have tried several different cottage cheese recipes. Some use lemon or vinegar to make the milk separate into curds, but this version, which uses rennet, is the best in my opinion. I do plan to keep experimenting with other versions so I can pass on a really good recipe that takes advantage of ingredients almost everyone can get their hands on. If you've ever made cheese before, the curd in this recipe is very soft and makes a cottage cheese that is similar in texture to what you'd get at the store. The taste is different, but in my opinion its better!

I found this recipe on NHHoney.com. It's a great site, especially for those who have an appreciation for real milk!

What You'll Need

  2-3 cups of cottage cheese

1 gallon fresh raw milk 

(I don't see why you can't use pasteurized milk if that's your preference)

1/2 cup cultured buttermilk

10 drops liquid rennet

2/3 cup water

Unrefined sea salt to taste

Optional: cream to pour on top

Getting Started

1. In a large pot, stir together milk and buttermilk using a large, non-reactive spoon (wood, plastic or stainless steel). Place pot on stove and begin to warm milk over medium heat until it's about the warmth of babies milk or more exactly 88° F. 

2. In a small bowl, dissolve rennet into the water, stirring well. Drizzle the rennet mixture slowly into the milk while stirring with your spoon. Stir the milk thoroughly to make sure the rennet is well distributed. Cover the pot with a lid and turn heat off on the stove. Move your pot to a cool burner or the counter. (I do this because I have a glass top stove and the residual heat can continue to heat whatever I have on the stove another 10°.

3. Allow the milk mixture to set for about 30 minutes or until you can achieve a clean break by sticking your finger into the curd. A clean break is when you stick you finger into the solid mass, known as curd, and when it is removed it comes out perfectly clean. 

4. Using a large, sharp knife cut through the curd in a grid pattern so that you have about 1/2" squares when you look at the top of the curd. (Cut half inch rows one way, then turn the pot 90° F and cut 1/2" rows again.) 

5. Wash your hands and forearm, making sure they are good and clean.  Using your hands, pull the curds up and continue to slice them into small pieces which are no larger than a 1/2". If the mixture is beginning to cool off, place it back on the stove and heat until it's back in the 80°- 90° F range. As you continue to stir and slice the curds they will begin to reduce in size as the whey comes out of them. After about 10 minutes of stirring and slicing the curds should be ready. 

6. Pour the curds into a cloth lined strainer that is placed over a bowl to catch the whey. I use a non-terry towel. A real cheese cloth would work perfect, but avoid the cheese cloth you typically see at the store, because they don't have a fine enough mesh and the curds can go right through. 

7. After the curds have been separated from the whey, rinse them off with some cool water. Break the curds up into small pieces as you wash them off.

8. Place the now cottage cheese into a bowl, sprinkle with salt and stir. Pour on enough cream to give it the consistency that looks good to you. Cream isn't necessary, just an extra added bonus! Don't throw out your whey, be sure to try making ricotta cheese with it! Enjoy with some fresh fruit, yum! 

Jarlsberg Swiss Cheese Souffle

Recently, Jarlsberg sent me a beautiful wedge of their Swiss cheese to use in a recipe. My mind began wheeling with ideas of what I could do with it. The recipes I could create are endless, like my favorite grilled cheese sandwich, a cheese fondue, perhaps a creamy cheese soup, or better yet, a delicious breakfast quiche! To be honest one of my favorite ways to eat cheese is simply sliced up with some fresh bread and fruit. It's an easy lunch or snack and this Swiss cheese has such a lovely flavor it doesn't need to be overly embellished. As I thought through my recipes, I decided to try something I've been wanting to do for a long time, but never seem to get around to – a souffle! They are always so beautiful to look at and are perfect for just about any meal and especially for brunch. With the holidays just around the corner, it's time to start figuring out what you'll be serving your guests or what special treats you'll want to make your family. To me, a souffle is certainly a special treat and they always taste wonderful!

Homemade Ricotta Cheese

No, it's not ice cream in the picture, although it does look like a delicious cup of vanilla ice cream. I couldn't think of how to photograph this wonderful cheese so I grabbed a cup and a plate and this is what we got! :-D

Ricotta cheese is a soft Italian cheese that is similar to cottage cheese. Ricotta literally means "recooked" and that is exactly how you make this fabulous cheese that can be used in a variety of ways, like in scrambled eggs or in stuffed pasta or shoot why not just eat a spoonful!

If you've begun making cheese at home, one thing you'll find is that you'll have a lot of whey leftover from the cheese making process. For every gallon of milk used to make cheese, you'll have nearly a gallon of whey. I was very surprised to find how much whey was left over when I first started making cheese. As a rule of thumb I try to avoid throwing things a way and although I use whey for soaking grains and beans, all in all, I don't use tons of whey. It seemed like such a shame to throw it all away.  (and no I haven't taken drinking it play yet, which some people do.) Then I found the recipe for how to make homemade ricotta cheese on Fankhauser's Cheese Page. Turns out ricotta is made from re-cooking your leftover whey. Sweet! Not only did I get to use my whey, but for one of my favorite types of cheeses too!

All in all, ricotta is fairly easy to make, but it is a bit time consuming. It takes a good portion of the day to do, but at least most of the time, it's a hands off process. You can go about other activities while the curds first cook and then while you separate them from the whey.

David Fankhauser does an excellent job on his website to show how to make ricotta, so by all means check out his sight. Some of my steps are a bit different and reflect how I've had success.

One note, when you make ricotta you can use any amount of whey, although I would use at least a gallons worth. Just make sure that your pot can hold close to twice the whey that you use. or that leaves you with 5" - 6" of space from the top. So if you use 1 gallon of whey, try and make sure you use a 2 gallon or something close to that. While you heat the whey it's going to boil and foam, if your pot is too small, (been there done that!) you'll end up with a huge mess all over you stove. Not so fun!
: )


What You'll Need:

• 1+ gallon of whey - for every gallon of whey you'll get about 3/4 cup ricotta cheese
• Thermometer - an instant read one would be handy, but any thermometer that can read up to 203 degrees will do
• Large, heavy bottomed pot with a lid - pot should be large enough that the whey will be 5"-6" away from the top or close to twice the size as the amount of whey you use
• Non-terry cloth dish towel that has been sanitized by boiling it in a pot of water for 10 minutes
• Large stirring spoon 
• Large strainer
• Soup ladle 

Getting Started
1. Sanitize your cooking pot by filling it with and inch or two of water and with the lid on, boil the water for 10 minutes. Dump water afterwords.

2. Pour your whey into the pot and cover with lid and allow to sit on the stove or counter for 12 -24 hours so it can develop the right acidity.

Note: Make sure there is no cheese particles in your whey. You may have to strain it through a fine mess strainer or a towel before it can be used for making ricotta. If you leave any small bits of cheese, they'll become very hard during the process of making the ricotta and will be an unpleasant texture in your end product.

3. The next morning heat your whey to 180°F or 82°C, stirring constantly so nothing burns or sticks to the bottom of the pot. You should begin seeing a white foam on top.

4. Continue heating your whey and stirring continuously until it gets to 203°F or 95°C. This is where an instant read thermometer can be handy. The steam from the whey is very hot, so be careful to not burn yourself. The foam will continue to build up and if you aren't careful and the whey gets too hot too quickly it will end up boiling and the froth can easily boil over. That's why I like to use a pot that leaves me with at least 5"-6" of extra space above the whey.

5. Once you've reached 203°F or 95°C, remove the pot from the heat and cover it with a lid. Allow whey to cool until you can comfortable touch it. This will takes several hours at the minimum. I normally let the whey sit for most of the day. Don't disturb the cooked whey, it's during this time you'll see the curds start to separate away from the whey. The curds will look like clouds floating in a light yellowish green liquid.

The above picture is the curds right after they've been cooked. As they cool they'll start to come together and separate more from the whey like in the picture below.

6. Once whey has cooled, line your strainer with your non-terry dish towel and place over the drain in the sink. (You can save the whey and feed it to your chickens and pigs, I don't have either, so I pitch it.) Using your soup ladle, very carefully remove as much of the yellowish, green whey as possible, pouring it through you lined strainer. The ricotta curds are extremely fine and the more whey you can remove before disturbing the curds the more quickly you'll get to your end product.

7. After removing as much whey as possible with your ladle, then scoop the curds into the strainer and allow the rest of the whey to run out. If you've checked out David Fankhauser site on how to make ricotta, you'll notice he uses a fine strainer to scoop out his curds from the whey. My curds are always to fine to be able to do that, so I use the ladle instead.

8. Allow whey to strain out of curds, this can and often does take several hours to happen. In the picture below I believe I left my curds to strain for around 3 hours. If it's getting late or you're running out of time, you can hang the towel with the curds in it in the fridge overnight to allow the rest of the whey to drain out. You'll know it's done when you have a nice thick, but smooth ricotta.

9. Store in the fridge for up to a week (at least that's about as long as I've left it) or freeze. Ricotta freezes very well, but keep it in an air tight container. The fragile flavor of the cheese will take on other flavors that are in your freezer.

Enjoy!

Homemade Raw Milk Farmer Cheese - Tradition with Cooking

I am one of those people who likes to know how to do things myself. This is the most true with food. I love knowing how people in the past before the advent of big grocery stores made all of the items in their kitchen, especially cheese. I figure if people were making cheese for hundreds of years before all of our technology, then surely I can learn to make it with all of the conveniences of a modern kitchen. As it turns out you don't actually need much to make cheese. It's kind of sad that it's a lost art for so many, because cheese making isn't particularly hard and it can taste oh so good!

I've made this farmer cheese quite a few times now. I only make it during the spring, summer and fall when I'm able to get fresh raw milk. Since farmer cheese isn't aged, you have to eat it within about a week before it starts to go south. I do have a recipe for an aged cheese which is awesome and I'll be sharing that in the next couple of weeks.

The biggest learning process of making this cheese was trying to figure out how much salt to add. The original recipe from Moon Wise Herbs didn't specify how much salt was needed. The first time I added about a teaspoon or so and this wasn't even close to enough. Each time I made the cheese I added a bit more and finally this last time I made it I think I added the right amount, which was 2 tablespoons.

What You'll Need: makes approx. 1 pound of cheese

• 1 gallon of raw milk
• 1 quart of whey - optional
• 2 tbsp. sea salt
• Liquid rennet - Twin City folks, you can get rennet at Whole Foods in the yogurt section.

• Cheese press - if you don't have one, no big deal. I don't so I used some heavy books and 2 plates to make my press
• Cheese cloth
• Large pot
• Mixing spoon
• Thermometer
• Sharp knife
• Slotted spoon
• Large Strainer
• Containers to store 1 gallon of whey - 1/2 gallon mason jars work great
• 2 Large bowls

Getting Started

1. First we want to sanitize our cooking items so we don't accidentally introduce any unwanted bacteria. Fill your large pot with several inches of water and bring to a boil. Add your mixing spoon, cheese cloth and knife if possible to it and boil them all for about 10 minutes.

Also, as you make your cheese, make sure your hands are very clean.

2. In your large pot, heat your milk and whey to between 80° and 90° Fahrenheit, then remove from heat. Add 13+ drops of rennet to the milk and stir well. Let the milk sit for 45 min – 1 hour until it has taken on the texture of tofu. You'll know it's ready when you stick your CLEAN finger into it and get a clean break. To understand a clean break better, check this link out, it's explained very well: Clean Break




3. Cut the mass into 1/2" chunks, using a grid pattern. Here is how the Fankhause cheese page explains it: Once a clean break is achieved, cut the curd with a long knife : begin at edge of pot, cut straight down to bottom. Cut repeatedly parallel to first cut, but increasing the angle of the knife until reaching other side of pot. Rotate the pot 90 degrees, cut as before . Rotate and cut two more times, yielding ½ inch cubes of curd .




4. Return the pot to your stove and slowly heat the curd chunks to 100 degrees. You want to do this very slowly about 2 degrees every 5 minutes. Continually stir the curd with your hands or a spoon, making sure nothing burns on the bottom of the pot. If you find any large pieces of curd cut them up. You'll notice the curds will start to shrink in size as they release the whey.




5. With a slotted spoon remove the curds from the whey and place into a large bowl. Add your salt and mix thoroughly. You notice the whey will continue to release from the curds.




6. Place your curds into a cheese cloth lined strainer that has been placed over a large bowl for catching the whey.




7. Bring your corners of your cheese cloth together and tie together, then hang the curds for about an hour over your large bowl to catch any more whey that might come out.




8. Put your curds into a clean cheese cloth and then place into a cheese press or put between two plates with a heavy object placed on top. In my case I used two huge art history books from college. I knew I'd find a use for those babies again! :-) Press the cheese for 12 - 24 hours .




9. Now it's time to enjoy some of your homemade cheese! You'll love it. Any leftovers can go in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Note: You'll have about a gallon of whey left over from making this cheese, don't throw it away! You can keep whey in the fridge for a couple of months or freeze it to use for all kinds of things or you can just drink it. You also can make ricotta cheese with it, which I'll show you how to do in the next couple of weeks.