Fall Cheese Making

This morning I made a pound of mozzarella cheese for Pam to use in her lasagna for tomorrow's dinner.  Our recipe is from Ricki Carroll's book Home Cheese Making and is called 30-Minute Mozzarella, and really only takes 30 minutes and comes out perfect every time. Sunday I started two pounds of feta cheese, probably my favorite cheese this year.  We also have a simple recipe for Ricotta cheese made with whole goat milk (vs. the traditional recipe using whey from hard cheeses).  Ricotta cheese freezes well so I won't make any for tomorrows meal as we have a good supply in the freezer.

Mozzarella Cheese ready to cool off in the refrigerator

Feta Cheese ready for brine

Feta is much more difficult to make correctly than Ricotta or Mozzarella and takes several hours of close attention.  Our problem in the past has been getting hard curds.  Soft curds and the cheese dissolves in the salt brine, but when it comes out good it is the best feta I have ever tasted.  We add the soft feta to dishes we cook and save the firm feta for salads and eating by itself.

Next year we are going to start making hard, aged cheeses.  Hard cheeses need to age several months at 55 degrees and high humility, so we need to get a new refrigerator.  I need to start looking for a used one soon and we will keep outside in a protected area next to the pump house.  I'm not concerned about energy use (of an old one) as we will be keeping the temperature somewhat high (at 55 degrees).