Hi from Bulgaria

[demi]

mozi :)

[demi]

hey merlin,

i tried some Bulgarian goats cheese, shop bought though, i didnt make it, but i was good.
i find they over salt the cheese here though so when i make it, when we get our goats, ill not put so much salt in it.

i make a lot of soft cheese just by using lemon juice to curdle the milk, and i put herbs/garlic/pepper ect in it and thats really tasty but that kind of cheese only keeps for about a week in the fridge.

i want to experiment and try to make cheddar, mozzarella and Parmesan cheese from goats milk.


need to get the goats first though :)

[merlin]

I agree, they over salt. I think it is just for keeping it though. We make it and eat it pretty quick so no need for the brine. I would love to make some cheddar, they simply don't have it here, it is one of the few few things i have not got used to not having
Soon time to get some yarries lol

[demi]

oh yes i allways miss good strong cheddar cheese! they only have kaskaval 'yellow cheese' here which is like yucky processed cheese.
they also have an abundance of really stinky cheeses that i cannot stomach! i cant stand cheese that smells like feet

so if i can make good cheddar from goats milk that will be fantastic!



another thing they dont have here is fresh cream. they seem to make all their cream into yogurt and cheese. they dont use fresh cream on their cakes, instead its all artificial stuff. i looked at the ingridients on a carton of what they were calling 'cream' and it didnt even contain any milk, its made from vegtable fat, which is alright if for vegans but not for me.
so to tackle this dilema i bought a cream seporator so i can get cream from the goats milk and we are planning on making our own butter from the cream and 0% yogurt from the skimmed milk. so hopfully we will produce all our own dairy products from the goats milk which will be natural and organic and free from all additives ect.

[merlin]

I hear what you are saying Demi, no cream, kashkaval lol, welcom the balkans

[demi]

how many goats do you have? im guessing you probably have the same breed of goats as they have here.
do you just make cheese from the milk or do you make other dairy products?
also do you get milk from your goats all your round by alternating which goats get bread when?
how much milk do you get from one goat and how many times do you milk them?
what do you feed them and do you produce your own goat feed?

i have got a good goat book and read and watched videos on the internet but dont have any hands on experiance with goats. apart from when i was wee and my parents too me to this farm which was open to the public for kids to come in and see the animals, somthing which would never be allowed now after all the BSE and swine flu!

we are planning on keeping them in the orchard most of the year and to bring them into our back garden over winter when its snowy as the road to the orchard becomes impassable in the snow.
we're hoping they will get the majority of what they need forraging in the orchard eating weeds, grass and fallen fruit. and in the winter we should feed them on our own grown alfalfa.
but im not quite sure what kind of grain to give them. we want to produce it all ourselves so we dont have to buy in anything.

[merlin]

We have quite a few goats, they go out each day with the shepard, do you have that system up there? It costs about 2 levs a month per goat 365 days a year. They come home for tea and parking lol.

Yes we make cheese mostly and sell or swap most of it. In terms of how ling they produce milk, they say that if they are happy, they will stay in mik for up to 3 years, we have some that did not produce kids last year and are still milking.

We feed them on barley, wheat and AlfaAlfa.

[Maykal]

Agh, cascaval, it's processed rubber here too.

Re cream - lots of products here use the artificial soya stuff (or whatever the fk it is) too, but in the markets you can pick up fresh cream and just sweeten it yourself. Or in the supermarkets we have something called 'smantana de gatit' which means 'cooking cream', and is basically something like a double cream - I water it down with milk if I want a single/pouring cream or whip it up to get something for cakes and pastries.

If you can get hold of some rennet, you should try making some halloumi with the goats' milk. I make it here when I can get my hands on some raw milk from the countryside. You can age it for a month or so, but it's still really nice enough after just 24 hours in the fridge in brine.

[merlin]

Agh, cascaval, it's processed rubber here too.

Re cream - lots of products here use the artificial soya stuff (or whatever the fk it is) too, but in the markets you can pick up fresh cream and just sweeten it yourself. Or in the supermarkets we have something called 'smantana de gatit' which means 'cooking cream', and is basically something like a double cream - I water it down with milk if I want a single/pouring cream or whip it up to get something for cakes and pastries.

If you can get hold of some rennet, you should try making some halloumi with the goats' milk. I make it here when I can get my hands on some raw milk from the countryside. You can age it for a month or so, but it's still really nice enough after just 24 hours in the fridge in brine.

Tell me more about halloumi, what is that?

[Maykal]

I think it's from Cyprus originally. I've just been watching your video on making Bulgarian cheese, it's a bit like the 'telemea de capra' we have here (same method). Good vids, anyway. I like the grape stripping/pressing thing you've bought yourself!

So, for halloumi (or might be haloumi) you need to make a mesophilic starter. It's basically a mould which you let multiply in some yogurt, a bit like a yeast starter in brewing. You add this to milk heated to about 30C, mix it in, then add the rennet and stir. You then keep the milk covered at about 30C for an hour, cut the curd into cubes, heat the cubes gently up to about 40C and stir them from time to time (over about an hour). Then you drain them in a cheesecloth, keeping the whey, and press the curds for a couple of hours. You then cut the pressed cheese into manageably slices and drop them into the whey, which you've preheated to about 80C, and leave them to soak for an hour. You then let them cool, salt them, and store them in brine.

It's a bit more complex than making fresh cheese, but it's pretty nice stuff (in my opinion). It's that cheese you can cut into slices and grill or fry, you know the one I mean? It browns on the outside and is a bit 'squeaky'.

[merlin]

hey, thanks for that Maykal, Im going to save that and do it in a few weeks, cheers!

[demi]

i love halloumi, defo gonna try that with the goat milk.

do you have any experiance with making cheddar from goat milk?

[merlin]

No, this year i want to get into the cycle of making cheddar, like, I always say that. I just miss it so

[Maykal]

I wanted to have a go at making chedder last year but really didn't have the space. You need to either have a good cellar with the right humidity, or failing that, get yourself an old fridge and regulate the temp in it to about 12C or there abouts.

I imagine you get plenty of good raw honey there too. Have you every tried making some hydromel/mead?

[demi]

12 degrees seems a bit warm. our basement gets much colder than that over winter. its maybe just over 12 in the summer.
ah, do you need to keep it warm for the bacteria or somthing?
iv only made soft cheese before, just with lemmon juice or vinigar, that needs eaten right away. but i want to branch out into hard cheeses that you leave to mature over winter. maybe ill have to re-think where to store it.