Riversdell

The first step in making cheese is getting the milk. I milk outside once a day in the morning after locking the dams away from their kids at night. That way, things aren’t too taxing for me and the goat kids and I can share the milk. Any clean-up is easily done with a nearby hose and the sunlight helps sterilize the area.

Oh – I am remiss. That’s Astrid on the left and Samanta on the right. They know the drill, and are the first to come out of the barn and jump up on the stands…

After straining the milk through a filter, I put it in gallon-sized glass jars. Then it just sits in the dairy until coagulation occurs, as seen in the jar on the left. This happens in 2 to 4 days depending on the temperature. I am skipping the commercial pasteurization and culturing/renneting steps here. Basically, instead of killing the indigenous microbes and replacing them with a mono-cultured clone, I am doing what observant humans have done for millennia to preserve milk. Scientifically speaking I am taking advantage of the lacto-peroxidase system that inherently discourages the growth of pathogens in the milk, and of the omnipresent lactic acid-forming bacteria to lower the pH so that the milk will curdle. From a gustative angle, I am using my local terroir, a presumably diverse cadre of yeast, molds and bacteria that will give the resulting cheese a complex and unique flavor. Do I know all this will come about? Uh – no, but if I can’t eat cheese I am prepared to eat crow…

Now is the time to separate the curd from the whey. (Serum is Latin for whey, by-the-by.) The whey drains over a period of 12 to 18 hours while the curd becomes ever more acidic. All is well unless Miss Muffet comes along…

Here is the curd after draining. It is ready to be salted and put into a mold. I have tried cheddaring” it, that is, cutting it up, salting the mass, and putting it into a mold. I have also tried just putting it into a mold and salting the top. My theory was that the first method would drain the cheese quicker. The results are still pending. This is a crucial step because it determines the texture of the final product to a large extent. Cheese that drains too fast will be dry and chalky-tasting…

Here is the lovely leftover whey. It is sort of an ethereal green that reminds me of absinthe. I like to drink it very cold. The sourness is refreshing, and it has sort of a creamy aftertaste.

Once, on the advice of some maven, I combined whey with Tang® and put it in the ‘fridge. My kids were very excited because I don’t buy soft drinks. They thought it was orangeade and promptly had a glass. Copious spewing and long-lasting acrimony were the result. To this day I have to stifle an evil grin when the subject comes up. Perhaps, if they are properly indoctrinated, I can serve this eclectic combo to my as-yet hypothetical grandchildren.