Have you ever seen a goat? Whether you’ve seen it or not doesn’t matter. Let’s continue and learn how to make goat cheese.
It’s easy. You only need a few ingredients; goat’s milk, mesophilic bacteria and rennet enzyme. And you can make it at the comfort of your own kitchen.
Cheese is basically a curdled milk. It’s done through the combined action of good bacteria and rennet enzymes. Most cheese are made of cow’s milk and the same technique can be applied to goat’s milk.
I hope you’ll figure out my point here. It’s not all about health issues. It has great business potential. Because goat’s milk has higher nutritional value, never causes allergic reactions, and yet gets only 2% milk supply share.
Goat’s milk and its product will become popular soon. You could make a fortune by making exceptional goat cheese. Go master the craft before someone does.
How to Make Goat Cheese From Raw Milk
Get the following ingredients to make cheese from goat’s raw milk.
- 1 liter raw milk, pasteurized milk if raw is not available
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- Liquid rennet
- Microbial starter, yogurt starter, mesophilic bacteria or Chevre Starter culture
Follow the following steps to make goat cheese from raw milk.
- In a heavy saucepan put one liter of goat’s raw milk. Refrain from using ultra-pasteurized and ultra-homogenized milk
- Gently heat up to 180°F while stirring to prevent sticking of solids to the bottom which might result in burnt.
- Remove from heat and let cool down to 108°F.
- Add 5 grams of yogurt starter and stir well to fully dissolve. You may use mesophilic starter culture as an alternative. It usually has manufacturer’s instructions for you to follow.
- Let rest for 2 minutes.
- Get ¼ cup of distilled water and add in 6 drops of liquid rennet. Stir well. Please check the label’s instructions because it may vary.
- Then transfer the prepared rennet to heated milk. Stir.
- Cover and let rest undisturbed at room temp for 24 hours. During this time, action of both bacteria and rennet will curdle the milk.
- For fermentation to occur efficiently, maintain the temperature of 70-75ºF.
- Wrap the pot with a towel or put inside the off oven to help maintain the temp. Incubator oven is best for this.
- If successful, the curdling will be evident after 24 hours.
- Cut the curds and then drained through cheesecloth.
- Make drier by hanging for 24 hours and another 24 hours inside the fridge.
- Form the goat cheese into balls or rolls.
How to Make Goat Cheese Mother Culture
Making goat cheese mother culture requires a bit of microbiological knowledge, sterile environment and a lot of practice. A small portion of culture will be able to inoculate a lot if you do the thing right.
You can make your own culture at home, although it’s not guaranteed to work all the time.
Follow the following steps to make goat cheese mother culture:
- Sterilize milk by boiling 1 liter milk for about 5 minutes.
- Cool down to 72ºF.
- Inoculate with source culture and let sit for 24 hours at 72ºF.
- Use immediately or chill in the fridge and use until 3 days.
- Alternatively, freeze for later use.
Like I said, it requires microbiological knowledge, patience and a sterile environment. It’s good to always have a fresh culture from the manufacturer. Use it in case your homemade starter fails.
How to Make Hard Goat Cheese
You can make hard goat cheese by following any of the numerous cheese making procedures. Then, after draining off the whey, put it in a custom mold. Or, just form the cheesecloth bag into a ball and place it under a set of weights. Then cut to sizes. Store in the fridge or freezer section.
How to Age Goat Cheese
Fresh goat cheese is great but aging brings it to a new height. Through aging, delicate flavors will arise giving the goat cheese a completely different flavor profile.
To age goat cheese, simply coat it with beeswax or pack in vacuum plastic, then store. Include herbs and spices inside the pack to make the flavor more exciting.
Why Does My Goat Milk Stinks?
It’s already spoiled, probably. Or maybe not.
For milking purpose, female goat, called doe, needs to be separated from buck, male goat. In case the stinking buck is not set apart from the herd, the bad smell will affect milk flavor.
Inform the goat farm about this incident.
If the cause is not the strong-smelling buck, then the milk you have might have been contaminated or spoiled. Throw it away and get a new supply.
Don’t Get Homogenized Milk
Get goat’s raw milk or whole pasteurized milk. Refrain from getting homogenized milk. The process changes milk structure thereby affecting microbe and enzyme’s ability to curdle the milk.
Don’t forget, don’t get homogenized goat’s milk.
Goat’s milk cream remains suspended, instead of rising. This phenomenon is attributed to small and emulsified fat globules. Thus, goat’s milk doesn’t need homogenization.
Goat’s Milk Has Higher Nutritional Value and Never Causes Allergic Reaction
Surprised? Don’t be. It has more benefits than you think.
- Goat’s milk has no alpha-s1-casein protein which causes allergic reactions.
- It has slightly lesser lactose, making it more digestible. Especially true for elder age brackets. As our body ages, we become less capable of digesting lactose.
- More calcium for maintaining your bone health.
- More protein per cup.
- Many studies have claimed that goat’s milk may enhance nutrients absorption.
You’re going to make a minimally processed goat’s cheese. So all the nutritional benefits of milk will be carried into the goat cheese.
Conclusion
Knowing how to make cheese is good, but knowing how to make it from a rare commodity is better, the goat cheese.
Goat’s milk is healthier than cow’s milk and so goat cheese is healthier than any other cheese. It has more protein, less lactose, never causes allergic reactions and facilitates better absorption of other nutrients.
Make goat cheese by curdling goat’s milk with the help of good bacteria and rennet enzymes. Filter the curds off to resemble cottage cheese appearance or press in a mold to make a hard variant.
Keep in mind, the best goat’s milk is raw or pasteurized. Homogenized milk is not fitted for the purpose. Also, check the milk smell. It shouldn’t have any repulsive male goat odor. Exquisite goat cheese comes from high quality raw material. A bad milk couldn’t be processed into a good product.
Also, age the goat cheese to deepen its flavor properties. Then smoke to create different sets of unique flavors. All you can do with other cheese can also be done with goat cheese.
Read my post on cheese substitutes for Manchego and Romano.
