Cheese, Grommet, Look at all the Cheese!

We love Wallace and Grommet around here. Partly because of the animation but also because we love cheese. And it's a good thing that we love cheese and fortunate that all my friends love it too because I have a lot of goat's milk right now therefore I'm making a lot of cheese.

As I was looking at my cheese in all it's various stages around my kitchen this morning I thought it would be fun to blog about it.

The first thing you need for cheese is milk. I have five goats, they are all Saanens or Saanen crosses. Zia is 5, Caddy is 2 and Bobbin is 3. Bobbin has 2 doe kids, Lace and Tat, so I am not milking her right now. Zia and Caddy are giving me 2+ gallons of milk per day. I am milking only once a day. I would get more milk if I milked twice a day or pulled the kids off Bobbin but I'm getting plenty of milk and I'm not tied to the farm as much.

 Zia is closest, eyes closed, then Tat, Bobbin, Lace and furthest away is Caddy.

It has taken the goats and me 2 weeks to work out our milking routine. To milk the goats; they have to get on the milk stand where they get a pelleted feed. Zia eats faster than I can milk her so I mix leaves from alfalfa hay into her bowl of pellets. It slows her down and we finish at about the same time. If she finishes first she fidgets making it hard to get the last bit of milk without having the milk bucket kicked. After she is done eating I put her into a pen separate from the other goats otherwise she would be very happy to come out and be "milked" again which causes lots of confusion and trouble.

 Full udder!

Caddy is a different bowl of fish altogether. She does NOT like to be touched. Especially around her head and face. So I need to be able to open the gate and wait out of reach while she comes out and gets herself onto the milk stand. But Bobbin and her kids are in the same pen with her, they come out if the gate is left open causing Caddy to run around the barn. Did I say that I have to be smarter than my goats? So I put some pellets in a tray for Bobbin and her girls, let them out, then rearrange the gates to close them off so I can let Caddy out. Then I open the gate wide for Caddy and move away. She comes out and puts herself on the milk stand. I close the head stall and take away her pellets until I get the rest of the equipment and goats arranged.

I move the tray of pellets so Bobbin, Lace and Tat go back into their original pen so hey are out of the way. I get the hobbles made of baling twine for Caddy. Did I say that I need to be smarter than my goats? Turns out Caddy does more than fidget on the milk stand. She will hop forward violently and kick the bucket. After having several battles with her where I lost and left the barn dripping milk. So now I tie her feet to the milk stand and then give her back her pellets It works pretty well this way and when I'm done milking her I set it up so she has a clear runway to an open gate back out into the pasture. No handling needed, less bruising for me and no drama for her.

When I start milking the first few squirts of each teat goes into a small bowl for the kittens. This way if there is anything in or on the teats it doesn't go into my clean stainless steel milk bucket. Then I start milking for real. When my milking bucket is 2/3 full I empty it into a milk filter over a lidded stainless steel milk tote. I put pie tins over the top of the milk filter to protect everything from flies and dust in the barn. It takes about 10 minutes per goat to strip them dry. Zia milks a little under a gal and Caddy milks a little more than. Caddy is actually easier to milk than Zia, it takes less squeezing to get the milk.

 Pasteurizing 165 deg F for 30 minutes or take it up to 185 deg F

I haul everything back to the house and put the milk into my stock pot and pasteurize the milk by heating it to 185 deg F. I let the milk sit and cool to 86 deg F. I add my culture and let it set for 1-2 hours then add rennet. Next I take the curdled milk and spoon it into cheese cloth that I have put in a colander in the sink. I tie the corners of the cheese cloth and hang it from the posts in my cupboards. It takes 6-12 hours for the cheese to drain. At this point if I'm making chevre' I will take it out of the cheese cloth and mix it in a bowl with salt, herbs and spices. Then it goes in the frig. If I'm making feta I put it in my cheese mold, layering it with salt. I put the lid on the mold and start by putting one can of soup on top to add pressure. Over the next two days I increase the number of soup cans to increase the pressure until it's a dry as I can get it. Then it is is cut and put into a salt water brine or into jars with herbs and olive oil.

 Cheese hanging from cupboard draining into bowls. Our dogs get the whey that drains out.

 Fresh Feta in olive oil, two with basil one with rosemary.

No the cheese making isn't over at this point. It's time to clean up. I wash everything in soapy hot hot water, the milking buckets, the pie tins, the filter holder, the stock pots, the cheese cloths, strings, cheese thermometer and spoons. I'll do it again tomorrow, it's an on-going process to make cheese Grommet.