goaty goodness

here is our recipe for home made raw milk goats cheese. when using raw milk you must be extremely careful about sterilization, the health of your animal, and the the cleanliness of your milking area/kitchen. raw milk is illegal to buy so unless you own your own goats consume at your own risk. all equipment shown has been sterilized by spraying a solution of 1 capful of hydrogen peroxide to 2 cups of water onto instruments and then washed off with hot water.


this is cinnamon and ali, the everdale goats!









step 1: get milk. i'm not going to write out how to milk a goat. that's something that needs to be taught "hands on" but i will say this, it's super fun!







here's the 4 litres of milk that will become cheese!








strain the milk through a milk filter, we pick these up where we get the rennet and other cheese supplies. this filters out any hair or debris that may have gotten into the milking bucket.









you need 1/4 of a drop of calcium chloride for ever liter of milk. how do you get a quarter drop? put 1 drop into 4 tablespoons of room temperature water. then for ever liter add one tablespoon of calcium chloride/water mixture.





next add 1/16th of a teaspoon of bacterial starter for ever liter of milk. let starter sit for approximately 3 minutes on the surface off the milk to dissolve.







mix starter in using 20 bottom to top strokes, bringing milk from the bottom of the pot to the top







mix rennet in the same proportions as calcium chloride and add 1 tablespoon rennet/water mixture for ever liter of milk. mix again with 20 bottom to top strokes. place a lid on the pot and put in an area where it will not be disturbed for at least 12 hours.





12 hours later the curds should have separated from the whey and your cheese should look something like this!







using a ladle take small chunks of the curd










ladle curd into a colander lined with butter muslin (very fine cheese cloth). colander should be set on a large bowl to catch the whey






tie the two left corners and two right corners of the muslin together in a double knot

hang curds off an s-hook in the fridge allowing whey to drain out into bowl for at least 12 hours. it's best if you have a fridge solely for cheese making as other flavours in your fridge will invade the cheese and make it taste off. once finished your cheese can be put into an air tight reusable container. if desired cheese can also be flavoured at this point with herbs, salt, fruit, honey etc.

whey can be mixed with grain and fed to chickens or pigs or can be used to bake bread!

thank you ali!!!! <3>