Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Its all about the cheese

Yes I have been doing what Wisconsin is good at, making cheese.

One of our girls decided that she really didn't want her baby, one of the other girls had just lost her baby and was happy to help out, but that left the first one with milk and no drinkers so we decided that we would make cheese.

We both like feta and feta is often made from ewe milk so that is where I would start, well the start is milking and gathering a gallon of milk. Which didn't go down so well with the ewe ( her name is Git).


 Having gathered a gallon of milk and reserched the internet for rennet etc, I set about making feta




The next day I had my ball of feta cheese ready for cuting and salting.


After salting, it is put in to a whey bath and is left in the fridge, as it matures it gets crumbler and a little stronger. We have already eaten some of it and it is delicious and a second batch was made.

I have also had a go at making a hard cheese, this took 2gallons of milk and will be about 4mth before we know if I was successful.


This is my home made press as hard cheese needs the whey squeezing out of it, so from this batch of hard cheese I was able to may a small amount of recotta cheese yum.

Now having produced 4 gallons of milk/cheese my ewe is coming at milking time and is alot happier to stand and be milked ( treats help) and the milk is now being used on my weaker quad lamb as she needs building up alittle.