How to preserve my homemade goat milk farmer's cheese

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

We have two girls in milk. One doe had her babies in April so they are long gone, giving us about a quart and a half a day. The other doe just had triplets on August 4 so we barely got any from her. Delicious, but we were just getting barely enough for my kid to drink a quart a day and plus a little extra to make a simple farmer's cheese.

I make a farmer's cheese (just whole milk plus vinegar as the coagulant). I heat the milk, add the vinegar, drain the whey off the curds, dump the curds in a big bowl, flavor with various herbs and spices, and fill up 2-oz containers with lids, refrigerate. Depending on the flavor, we use on bagels or pasta or whatever (my husband is lactose intolerant). We really like the cinnamon with agave nectar or the raspberry, peach, garlic/dill or onion/herb.

Anyway, now that we've sold 2 of the 3 August babies, their mom is suddenly giving a full quart (plus) at each milking. I have more milk than I know what to do with. We do freeze some of the cheese in their 2 oz containers, and "give" to some people at Hubby's work, but now that I have extra, I want to preserve WITHOUT freezing.

I don't want to change to rennet cheese. I like using vinegar, and am good at it. How can I make my spreadable farmer's cheese more solid (hard?) and make it shelf stable? I want to preserve for our winter use when I don't milk the goats.

Can I smoke it on our grill?

Can I water-bath can it?

Thanks.

 

[ORChick]

It sounds like the cheese is similar to a cream cheese; is that right? I have kept cream cheese/fresh goat cheese/drained yogurt cheese submerged in oil - just roll the cheese into balls, put in a sterilized jar, and cover with oil (I use olive oil); work the bubbles out. The cheese is still good for spreading, or melting onto pasta/pizza. This works nicely with plain cheese, or herby flavored, but I'm not sure how well it would turn out with cinnamon or fruit flavored cheese. Worth a try, maybe. I have kept such jars on the shelf in cool weather. I sometimes flavor the oil instead of the cheese, but it is recommended, in this case, to use dried herbs and/or garlic/onions rather than fresh (botulism danger in the airless environment of the oil).

 

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

Do you know how long those would last on a pantry shelf?

 

[~gd]

why would dried herbs be any safer than fresh herbs for botulism danger in the airless environment of the oil? I mean the spores are every where in nature The drying process will not kill spores, lack of moisture will force living cells ti throw spores. I am not a cheese maker but does the vinegar remain in the curds enough to consider the cheese a high acid food and therefore safe from the production of botulism toxin? I know you can be right about oil stored food. I buy oil stored garlic, the warning is on the lable. any comments?

 

[moolie]

I've kept regular cream cheese in a jar in the fridge for literally months before (because my kids tend to forget about it and it gets pushed where no one can see it) and then pull it out and begin eating it again.

I think our record is 7 months but I bet it would last even longer, this is for fresh cream cheese from my local cheese lady at the farmer's market. She sells it wrapped in plastic wrap in 4 oz chunks, I unwrap it and squish it down into a half-pint canning jar and just keep it in the fridge.

That said, you can also freeze the milk and then make more cheese later

 

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

I don't have room in my freezer to freeze milk for later cheese-making, or even to freeze cheese. I like to start the Fall off with my freezer full from the garden and slaughtered animals.

Also don't want to have jars and jars of this in the fridge, so that's out. I want to store cheese in the bottom level of our house (walk-out basement), on the coldest wall, in jars, on a shelf.

I'm trying an experiment this weekend: making some cheese, putting it in a pint jar, packing tightly, and then "painting" several layers of paraffin on top, making sure none of the cheese is exposed to air. Then just put lid on jar and put on pantry shelf. I understand this will work, as well as using cheese wax instead of paraffin so I'm ordering the cheese wax and will experiment when it gets in.

Found out that maybe a daily salting (to pull out the moisture and to form a rind) might turn this into a hard cheese. Only thing is I have high b.p. so don't really eat anything with salt.

As far as the questions about whether enough vinegar stays in to classify this as an acidic food, I'm not 100% sure, but since I can still slightly taste vinegar in plain unflavored unsalted cheese, then probably. I assume it's acidic.

 

[ORChick]

why would dried herbs be any safer than fresh herbs for botulism danger in the airless environment of the oil? I mean the spores are every where in nature The drying process will not kill spores, lack of moisture will force living cells ti throw spores. I am not a cheese maker but does the vinegar remain in the curds enough to consider the cheese a high acid food and therefore safe from the production of botulism toxin? I know you can be right about oil stored food. I buy oil stored garlic, the warning is on the lable. any comments?

Good point ~gd. I am quoting what I have read, and have always assumed it is the lack of moisture in the herbs that makes it safer. I think I should do some more research before I try this again. Thank you for making me think about the next step.