I just attempted a cheese from Fankhausers Cheese page.Basic white cheese for 1 gal.I cultured 1 gal of milk with 3 teaspoons of fresh(homemade) buttermilk and let sit a room temp for 12 hours to acidify before adding the rennet.When it was time for the rennet I checked the big pot of culturing milk and it had turned to a thick buttermilk already(thick and gelatinous).According to the instructions if the milk is even slightly clabbered the rennet with not coagulate to a clean break.My question ,besides having a gallon of buttermilk, is there anything else I can do with this milk.Now at this point it has sat out overnight(so another 10-12 hrs)If I lleave it longer will it go to curds on its own?thanks for advice,Dori
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If you have the Ricki Carroll book, I'd suggest reading the front section on the basics of cheesemaking. After you do that, everything will make more sense to you. Because you are using ND milk, it is higher in butterfat, so most instructions for advanced cheeses will require some adjustments.
I have never used the junket rennet. I had actually never heard of it when I started making cheese, so I started buying the real cheese rennet from the cheesemaking supply houses. I don't understand why people would prefer to use something that is not made specifically for cheese when you have good rennets easily available at a very reasonable price -- pennies per batch of cheese. Use the right tool or ingredient for the job, and you will be disappointed far less often.
As for those people who are happy with junket rennet -- you have no idea what their definition of success is, so who knows why they say it works. I've seen blogs where people have a picture of them "stretching the mozzarella" and it's clearly NOT stretching -- it's breaking as they try to stretch it a few inches -- and then they complain that it doesn't taste like mozzarella. But they've never seen mozzarella properly stretched, so they think they've done it. (When mozz is stretching, it does NOT break at all, regardless of how far apart you stretch your arms, meaning that you can have a two-foot long string of cheese!) Sometimes I actually think it was easier to get good info when I was starting out almost ten years ago because info was rare, and mostly knowledgeable people were posting online. Today, however, with the proliferation of blogs and homesteading, everyone is posting about how to do everything when they've only done it once or twice, and tons of bad info is getting out there.
Yes,this does help.One of my reasons for moving on with the Fankhauser recipes was that I have had great luck with the yogurt.I had noticed that other recipes did not have the cultured milk sit so long.I have been actively making buttermilk for baking and so my buttermilk used as a mesophlic culture is very vigorous.Anyway,I did skim the cream and make a little bit of butter(my 1st)and just ate it on muffins.I think I will try to hang the rest in a cloth and drain.It is quite thick.
I have the Ricki Carroll Home Cheese Making and Goats Produce Too.And after I got into this, remembered that the Fias Co farm site has cheese making info too.
any preferences on rennet type and brand?
And why do I see so many conflicting opinions on the Junket brand rennet.It is recommended by Fankhauser but I have also seen postings on some cheese forums that it does work fine.Then lots of opinions to NOT use it.
once again thank you for your help,Dori
You've got something between buttermilk and sour cream. As long as it smells and tastes good, there is nothing wrong with it. You can use it for making buttermilk biscuits or pancakes or my turkey stroganoff recipe (also works with beef). If it is super thick already, you can go ahead and drain it through a cheesecloth for something like a yogurt cheese. Your options are numerous! If you like it, you may have just discovered something you'll want to repeat.
I have never seen a cheese recipe that told you to add rennet 12 hours after culturing. It is normally added somewhere between 0 minutes and one hour after adding the culture. When we make buttermilk in summer, I do it exactly as you just did -- add old buttermilk and let sit 12 hours. In winter it takes 24 hours because our house is colder. Although some of the recipes on Fankhauser's site are good, I do know that he is not an expert on everything he puts up. For example, he had only made gjetost once before putting up that recipe -- at least at the time I read it a couple years ago -- and I used it in combination with two other posts I found online to figure out how to make gjetost because his instructions were incomplete. When getting started, however, you really should use tried-n-true recipes because you don't have the basic knowledge behind you to know why things work the way they do.
I don't know what his "basic cheese" is, but if you're just trying to make a chevre, there are plenty of credible recipes. Cheesemaking.com has quite a few recipes on their website, as well as all the cultures and rennets. It is a good place for beginners to start. You can get a direct set chevre starter from them that is basically no-fail. Just add the packet of culture and rennet to the milk, let sit for about 10 hours, put into molds, wait a few hours, and voila! You have cheese! After years of using that, I started making my own chevre using mesophilic starter and rennet, and it's just as easy, but I add them both at the beginning of the process. Hope this helps!