I begged my husband to buy me a cheese making kit a few weeks ago. He was hesitant at first, but after thinking about it he decided it would be a cool hobby for me. So our kit came in the mail and my husband became more interested than I thought he ever would be. He completely took over my cheese making venture! He has made several cheeses now. I really love that he is so into making cheese! This is a man who gagged at the thought of drinking raw milk. He is now eating raw milk cheese every week! We now own a traditional dutch style cheese press and a mini refrigerator “cave” for aging our cheese.

We have made feta two times, following this recipe. It taste wonderful! It also doesn’t age as long as other feta recipes call for, which I like.

Raw Feta – By Flip & Tiffy

Ingredients

1 Gallon Raw Goat’s Milk
1 packet of Mesophilic Culture
½ Teaspoon Liquid Rennet (with ¼ cup non-chlorinated room-temperature water)
5 tablespoons kosher salt
20 oz. Whey

Directions

Slowly heat milk to 86 degrees, stir gently 5-10 mins to ensure milk is evenly heated.
Remove from heat and add 1 packet of Mesophilic culture, use skimmer and make up and down motions to draw cultures down and evenly (do NOT break surface).
Let stand for five minutes to rehydrate.
Maintaining 86 degrees, let stand and ripen for one hour.
During ripening dilute ½ teaspoon of liquid rennet in ¼ cup non-chlorinated water, stir for 20 seconds.
Once milk is done ripening for one hour, add rennet solution to milk and stir with up and down motion for one minute (do NOT break surface).
Let stand for 30 minutes, keeping 86 degree temperature.

Check for clean break, if necessary let the milk sit for ten more minutes.
If clean curd break occurs, cut curds to ¾ inch cubes and let stand for five minutes to firm up. (Vertical cut, horizontal cut and 45 degree cut; vertical and horizontal).

(Other recipes call for thirty minutes of stirring gently after cutting the curd, I’ve found this to be counter-productive and ladle curds almost instantly after the five minutes.)

Ladle curds gently into butter-muslin lined in a colander, let drain for 5 minutes.

Pick up the butter-muslin (filled with the feta-curds of course!) and slowly for ten minutes squeeze the excess whey from the curds. (Yes, this can perhaps be done other methods, but I’ve found this to be more “personal”).
Afterwords fill a mold with the curds. Curds will be soft but will firm up enough to flip after ten minutes.

Drain in colander for one hour, flipping the cheese in the mold every 15 minutes.
“Knoch” the cheese in the mold once in a while to ensure whey expelling.
Once one hour of flipping and “knocking”, let drain at room temperature for 24 hours.
Dress the cheese for about four hours in a mold/colander and apply three pounds of pressure.
Once 24 hours of ripening has finished produce your whey-brine (20 oz of whey and five tablespoons of kosher salt.

Age feta for a day and a half for semi-crumbly texture. Three days to produce a normal-crumbly feta texture.

After feta has aged keep in refrigerator for up to one week and of course , enjoy!

This post is linked to:
My Meatless Monday @ My Sweet and Savory
Tuesday Twister @ GNOWFGLINS
Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays @ Simply Sugar & Gluten Free
Two for Tuesday Recipe Blog Hop hosted by many bloggers