I was approached my a man who is going to start a farm and he wants to know if I would come to his farm and make cheese for him. He wants to have goats, and organic vegetables, and he is building a creamery and a cheese cave on his property for me to make the cheese in. He says that he has worked on a dairy farm with cows, so he knows something, but he wants to get goats to start with. He may get a cow later on. He only asked me if I would come run his creamery so I will let him deal with his goats, I am researching milk and cheese like I told him I would do.
I would like to ask a few general questions here
On average, about how much milk do you get from a goat in a day? I am assuming milking every 12 hours so that's twice in a day.
Can you make any cheese from goat's milk? I've seen recipes for goat milk cheddar, gouda, and Swiss but I read somewhere that it doesn't make a firm curd and is better for soft cheeses. So I'm asking here to find out the truth. I only make hard cheeses, because that's what I buy at the store. Since I see goat milk Swiss and goat milk Gouda I know it can be made, but is it very different?
Goat milk here is $7a quart, so I'm not going to be able to experiment a lot, right now. I buy raw cows milk for $7 a gallon for my cheese right now.
I found a lot of cooking recipes that call for goat's milk but they don't say what style of cheese it is. I'm thinking that they are probably referring to chevre, is that correct? I went to a restaurant yesterday and had some fried cheese that they said was goat's milk cheese but that's all anyone ever tells you. It was a soft cheese, rolled into a little log, and battered and fried with a little honey drizzled over the top. It was delicious.
I was going to figure out how much milk I think I can deal with, and still keep my job, so that he would not go out and over invest in goats when he first starts out. He can always buy more after he gets used to tending to them and milking them.
He doesn't have the farm built yet, he just owns the property. He has to do a lot of work before we will actually be out buying goats, and we have to read a lot of stuff about goats.
Me, I have to read a lot of stuff about setting up and running a creamery. I'm all excited. He's spending money, I'm making cheese. I recipes to perfect.