This is a generic recipe for making Chèvre. Chèvre is the French word for goat and Chèvre cheese is a simple goat’s milk cheese. Chèvre is primarily (as it uses a small amount of renet) a lactic acid coagulated cheese fresh cheese.
Ingredients
- Goat’s milk.
- Mesophilic Starter Culture, homemade or manufactured such as Danisco’s Choozit MM100, amount as per manufacturers/package directions or your experience.
- Optional: Diluted Calcium Chloride if using store bought pasteurized goat’s milk, amount as per manufacturers directions or your experience.
- Rennet, small amount, significantly less than manufacturers/package directions which are usually for rennet coagulated cheeses.
- Salt.
Directions
- If using raw milk then it is recommended to pasteurize milk first.
- Heat (or if just pasteurized cool milk) to 23-24°C / 74-76°F, measure pH. Note lower temperatures (ie down to 20°C / 68°F) will take longer and will result in more diacetyl/gas formation.
- Add mesophilic culture.
- When have 0.2 pH drop i) add optional CaCl2, ii) add rennet, and iii) cover and let ripen while maintaining 23-24°C / 74-76°F.
- When pH reaches 4.45-4.7 (4.6 is optimal, normally a yogurt consistency), ladle curds into draining molds on draining board at room temperature. Note, there is a narrow range of 0.2 pH to get optimal rheology (friability, drain speed, curd adhesion, and overall body).
- Drain cheese to desired consistency, normally overnight.
- Turn cheese in mold onto draining mat, when cheese(s) dropped, remove molds.
- Dry salt to taste.
- If still too moist allow drain at room temperature further.
- Place in high humidity cheese cave, after few days Chevre is ready to be eaten.
Options
- Optional: Flavorings such as pepper, garlic, dill, or parsley
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