NoobieChickenLady's Journal - SS Score and Mah Kitteh is HOME!! Yay!

[noobiechickenlady]

Vicarious living at its finest, eh PG?

OFG, I let the whey sit overnight at room temp, covered. I put my pot on top of my cast iron biscuit pan (flat like a griddle, but round) clipped my thermometer to the pot of whey & heated it to right at 200*. As it started steaming, little white particles started floating around. When it got up to temp, there was a lot of foam on top, but as it cooled it died back down. I turned off the heat & let it sit for a while to cool, then poured through one of the bar towels I had sterilized. I hung it up to drain for a couple of hours, then came back, added the salt, garlic & tomatoes and enjoyed. Yum!

The cast iron pan helped even the heat out, so there weren't any hot spots. Helps when cooking rice too, or simmering anything.

I used a gallon of milk for the cheese and ended up with about 3/4 lb of not-really feta and about 6 ounces of ricotta.

Cherve sounds fairly simple, is there a sub for the specific cherve starter or should I order some?

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

wow thats great! ok i just need to work on it...

the chevre is easy PEASY.... blackbird had a post on how to and also....hold on... fiascofarm has a similar one:
http://fiascofarm.com/dairy/chevre.htm

its just:

1. go milk your goat (be the boss and hold the bucket, darn you debbie!)
2. strain it into a big stainless pot
3. mesophilic culture (you can order just this kind - makes it cheaper) and rennet (depends on how much milk, for instance i had just under a gallon but BB uses half gallon)
4. let set over nite
5. let strain thru cheese cloth (most of the day)

voila there you have it!

 

[freemotion]

Don't worry about your feta, cheeses like feta get betta with age! I still have a few chunks in the fridge that I am stingily doling out by the crumb until cheese season starts up in about two weeks, after Mya freshens and I have enough to make a four-gallon batch!

It is really easy to make the ricotta, but with some cheeses, there will not be enough protein left in the whey to make it worthwhile. So you may not have failed, OFG, it might be the whey. Also, if you are working with just a little whey, you might just get a tablespoon of ricotta, hardly worth the trouble. Hence the four gallon batches....

I noticed this morning that www.cheesemaking.com added a lot of trouble-shooting tips to their site that are new!!! I can't wait to get started and learn from last year's mistakes and experiences and the new tips on that site.

 

[Henrietta23]

That may be my new favorite site!

 

[noobiechickenlady]

Thanks OFG, that is easy peasy!

Free, thanks for the link! I am hopeful for my "feta". I'm giving it a month before I taste it again. I went ahead & salted it, let it sit covered at room temp & poured off the whey that it kept producing. I put it in a jar to brine & stuck it in the back of the fridge. Then I made some lemon juice herbed paneer from 1/2 a gallon to feed my addiction.

I dreamed about making a waxed cheese this weekend. I've got it baaad

Nasty weather this weekend & rain was blowing into the goat shed, so I draped it with some of my garden plastic, dug out some of the wet spots & added some shavings.
I love the raised beds, even with all the rain we've had, the beds are just wet, not underwater.
I think I've figured out the water flow across the yard so I can make it actually drain. Gonna take some work, since the area is too wet to use any kind of machinery.
Going to have rabbit again this week, I'm trying to cull down to my 2-3 breeders & the male. Got plans on a wire cage for the bunnies, so I can separate the females.

3.93 lbs this morning, 3.86 last night, don't remember the exact amounts from Sat or Fri night, but I do have them written down at home. Upped the amount of sprouts in Dixie's feed to 2 brimming cups. Cut a ton of branches to put in the shed. With all the warm, wet weather I did the 3 day herbal wormer routine on all three Frid, Sat & Sun.

Traded a quart for a dozen eggs, since I still have a couple more months before any of my girls are laying. And about that before I will be enjoying some delicious chicken dinner
Gave my best friend a quart just to try, her son loved it & said it didn't make his stomach hurt like store milk. Hmmmmm
All that, plus a gallon of yogurt and I still have 2.5 gallons in the fridge. What a problem to have! DH has to start drinking more milk, we used to go through a gallon a day! Hopefully by the time Shadow freshens (still many months away, almost a year) I will have the cheese thing somewhat down.

Dixie did the cutest thing after last night's milking. She stayed on the stand after she was finished eating, giving me pitiful eyes, then scratched at her side. I grabbed the new grooming brush, dusted her down with some DE & gave her a good brushing. She was in extacy! So much so, that when I moved over to Shadow, she grabbed the end of my ponytail & tugged. Silly goat! I gave her another good brushing over her head & neck then turned back to Shadow. Well, I still wasn't done apparently, because she tugged on me again. I see why the former owner spoiled her

 

[freemotion]

Awww, don't you just love that? My mare was like that. I finally hung a brush in her stall and she would go nose it when she wanted to be brushed.

Taste your feta every week for four weeks. It will continue to get salty in the brine, so you want to take it out and store it dry eventually. I bought some of the special wrapping paper for that, the two-layer stuff. It works great. If it gets too salty, it is great for "salting" popcorn and other things.

I just found some very cheap cheesewax on this site: www.fieldforest.net The yellow is supposedly not dyed, but natural. I haven't factored shipping in my total cost calculations, but it is significantly cheaper here than the cheesemaking supply places.

 

[noobiechickenlady]

You are awesome Thanks!!

 

[noobiechickenlady]

3.87 lbs this morning, 3.92 last night. Dixie did wonderfully and even licked the fines out of the bottom of the feeder.

I feel icky and do not want to be at work, but in bed. Plenty of sleep, no fever, cough, nausea or sinus, just feel... icky.

DH is doing the feedbags finally, Yay! By that, I mean eating 2lbs of veggies from a quart ziplock. He says he never wants to see another piece of broccoli in his life. Granted, there was a preponderance of broccoli, since we had a lot in the fridge. So I cut him up some cauliflower

 

[freemotion]

Raw brocolli, yuk! I only will eat it in coleslaw, or on rare occasions with a LOT of dip! Yay for your dh! He will live a longer, healthier life if he keeps this up! Sugar snap or snow peas are nice, too, and in season in some places.

 

[Henrietta23]

Raw brocolli, yuk! I only will eat it in coleslaw, or on rare occasions with a LOT of dip! Yay for your dh! He will live a longer, healthier life if he keeps this up! Sugar snap or snow peas are nice, too, and in season in some places.

Blah! No raw broccoli here either. Or cauliflower. Peas on the other hand I will ONLY eat raw in the shell!
Sugar snap peas and hummus. Mmmmmmmmm