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Gidday

I have started milking a house cow. Well share milking with the calf anyway.

Bin getting a small surplus of milk and was wondering how little milk is it worth trying to make some cheese with.

If you don't have enough you could freeze it until you have. Most recipes I've found are for 4 gallon batches, and as far as I understand the rule of thumb is 1 kilogram/gallon?

Milk is ~90% water, 4 gallons=~19 litres, 19/100 = 0.19, 0.19*10 = 0.76 kg (assuming cheese and water have the same density)

Jack - I use 10 litres for a batch of cheddar, which gives me a 2kg round of cheese. But you can experiment with your small amounts, slowly heating the milk to just under boiling and slowly stirring in vinegar (I like cider vinegar best, as it gives a nice, subtle flavour to the cheese) until the milk curdles (which usually happens pretty quickly. Remove from heat before you begin to add the vinegar. Strain through some muslin or a cheesecloth, and hang to drain. While it's still warm, you can add herbs, olives, salt or pepper, or whatever you want to try. That's about the most basic cheese. I also have some packets of direct set starter culture, to make fromage blanc, a nice spreadable cheese. I get these from the states, and use them when I'm lazy but don't want to "waste" the milk on the chooks. They are about $10 per packet, and each packet makes 5-10 batches of cheese, depending on how much milk you're using (I also have the direct set starter culture for making cheddar and other cheeses if you're interested... when I was first learning to make cheese, it was the easiest thing to use, and I use them when I do my cheese making demos, introducing newbies to cheesemaking).

Cheesemaking really isn't hard once you get the hang of it, but even 7 years into cheesemaking, I still make some mistakes. Some mistakes get fed to the chooks, some of the mistakes are delicious!

Cheers
Andrea
NZ

I also make fresh cheese from small quantities of milk - unless you have a large family and everybody wants their share, it's well worth it just using 2 litres!

Gidday

Hey Ina, have you got any recipes or methods that aint secret?

yes Ina recipe please

I'll have to look at my trusty book - but it's all still a bit hit and miss with what I'm doing there. And I use VeggieRen - don't know whether you can get that downunder?