 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Presents: 'The Cheesemakers' |
|||||||
 |
Carol Lively and her daughter Christina Lively Spring Farm Rowe MA True Home/Farmstead cheese making on a small scale |
 |
|||||
| The Lively's have a small farm in western Massachusetts where Carol and her daughter Christina take care of a small herd of goats.... | .... from which they make cheese for themselves and friends in their kitchen, a very traditional way much as our grandparents may have done | ||||||
|
click on any image to enlarge it ! |
|||||||
|
the work begins with the care of the goats, a labor of love as can be seen in these photographs
|
 |
 |
 |
||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||
|
|||||||
| Now ... If you have goats, you're going to have milk and sometimes it is a lot of milk and it keeps on coming... .... More milk than one family can drink! |
 |
 |
 |
||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
|
|||||||
| So ... You learn how to make cheese !
Today Carol will be making a Feta Cheese from her goats raw milk |
 |
 |
 |
||||
| Carol starts by filtering the warm milk... |
...to which she adds... | ...yesterdays milk, which has been kept chilled | |||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
| the pot is placed in a sink with warm water to bring the milk up to the proper temperature | she then adds the starter culture and allows their milk to set and ripen | during the wait, she prepares the acid testing materials... | ... to test the milk for the first signs of ripening, at which point she will add rennet | ||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
| after a proper curd is formed ... | She begins to cut into 1/2" pieces... | ...to allow the whey to separate | stirring is continued to keep the curds separate | ||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
| when the curds have lost enough whey... | ... she allows the curds to settle and begins to remove the whey | when most of the whey is removed, the remaining curd... | ...is transferred and allowed to continue draining | ||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
| the curd will rest for several hours ... | ... in it's draining cloth until ... | ...it mats into a nice consolidated cheese | the curd will continue to rest overnight and dry off for 2-3 days.... | ||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
| ...it will then be cut into pieces and prepared for salting | salt will be added and allowed to dissolve into the cheese... | the pieces are then turned and salted again ... This will be repeated several times since this is a highly salted cheese | the salt will begin to draw out more whey, which is poured off as it accumulates |
||||
| all of this salting will make a very dry cheese preserving it for long periods in brine made up of 50:50 whey and water |  |
Jim Wallace 08/05
|
 |
||||