Last time I tried to make Feta cheese I almost blew up the house with my son inside. No, it wasn’t intentional, it was an accident waiting to happen. I use a gas stove and I had the window opened, not realizing it could blow out the burner. It did and I got distracted and was out of the house. My son, who is 20 years old, appeared at the door asking, “Were you trying to kill me?” Talk about a low point in my life. Well, he’s fine, the house is in one piece, and an important lesson learned.
The first time I tried to make Feta cheese, I made a bunch of mistakes. I learned what I did wrong from my neighbor who has many years of experience making cheese. See, she sold me my first two goats, Shannon and Sipsy. Let me introduce you to the girls, who without them, I wouldn’t have my Feta cheese. Here’s Shannon
An Alpine and all round goofy goat.
I don’t think I have a picture of Sipsy to share. I’ll have to get one.
Anyway, on to what to do or not to do with Feta cheese.
1. Always pastuerize (144 degrees F for 30 minutes) the milk. Then cool (if necessary) for specific recipe.
144 degrees F for 30 minutes
Next step for Feta cheese is to chill it to 85 degrees and let rest for 1 hour.
85 degrees F for one hour
The first mistake (of many) I made the first time. I didn’t wrap the pot with towels. It is necessary to keep the cheese at as close to constant temperature. This is an important step with making cheese. Keeping the temperatures right is half the battle of making cheese.
Wrapping with towels
Another mistake I made the first time. I followed the recipe, which said to use cheesecloth, doubled. I did that, but I found out later that cheesecloth, even doubled allows to much of the liquid (whey) to drain off. I started out with a gallon of milk and didn’t even have a handful of curds at the end.
Cut the curds and let rest. Don’t forget the towel. When you come back the liquid (whey) will be working to the surface between the cracks. You want to separate the curds from the whey.
Run knife through cutting one inch grid.
Stir gently
I use a pillowcase now. Thanks to my friend’s suggestion. It works better than even double up cheesecloth. It allows the whey to drain out without taking most of the curds with it.
Pillowcase is better than cheesecloth.
Tie ends together and let drain for 5 hours. The recipe tells me to tie cheesecloth in a knot and insert chopsticks and suspend from pot. The pillowcase isn’t as easy to tie, so I use a rubber band. I put chopsticks through the rubber band. But when I try to suspend it over the pot, it touched bottom. That wouldn’t work, so I used my mesh strainer inside the pot which allowed for drainage that kept the pillowcase above the drained whey in the pot.
Two different approaches
Pressing and rolling out the remaining whey. This is a trick my girlfriend taught me. Put the cheese wrapped up flatly in pillowcase and then wrapped in a towel. Roll and squeeze out extra moisture. It’s just like rolling your knitted handwashed garments.
Wrap cheese in pillowcase, wrapped in towel
The finished cheese! Now it will stay refrigerated for 4-5 days. Can’t try it until Saturday.
Refrigerate for 4-5 days.
