Venom's Feta #1

[eVenom]

Great Success!! 

I just had my first shot at making Feta and believe it came out good although I cant tell until a couple of weeks if it is good or if it is just taking space in my fridge waiting to be thrown into the garbage.

I made this by mixing a couple of recipes together.

Ingredients:
1 Gallon Store Milk (although I always use dry&cream)
1 cup cream
1/8 tsp Calcium Chloride
1/4 tsp Lipase
2 oz Mesophilic Starter
1/4 tsp Rennet

Directions:
>Mixed milk + cream + CC and heated to 90 deg,
  meanwhile dissolved lipase with 1/4 cup water
>when 90 deg was reached I added lipase
>Mes Starter
>Rennet
>let rest 90 min
>Cut Curd
>stir every 15 min for 2 hours
>strained curds so they will fit in my Homemade cheese basket
>Turned every hour 3 times
>drain overnight
>Turned 1 hour to match the sides
>Cut into squares
>Put in container with 12% brine

Brine:
20 oz Water
5 tbsp Salt
1 drop CC
1/16 Citric Acid

I think it came really good and I am Happy with the results till now. I will post pics in a few minutes.

[eVenom]

Here The pics!

[Cheese Head]

Venom, pics look great, like the homemade draining box!

How was the firmness of the cheese before brining?

Also, on your brine, what is CC?

[eVenom]

Yes! the draining box is pretty neat the lid has holes in it so that the first turn was possible without the risk of breaking the cheese but after the first set of turns it was hard enough to do a real turn with made the cheese have a even shape.

The cheese was soft (hard to describe) but it could be handle without breaking or changing shape so I thought it's OK

oh! and CC is Calcium Chloride I just added a drop to help stop the melting of the cheese

[wharris]

How does CaCl2 help stop the melting of the cheese?

[eVenom]

Well when a brine is New it do sent have calcium in it and the brine will pull the calcium out of the cheese because it will try to reach an equilibrium and in doing so it will soften the cheese because Calcium its what holds the cheese together.

That's why we add the CaCl2 in the first place.

Also I know some cheese makers ad whey to their brine because it will help with lowering the PH and also helping with the calcium content.

Maybe I didn't need it but just to make sure I added it!

[wharris]

Interesting.  I add a pinch or less of citric acid to bring my pH to 4.7.

There was a good brine pH discussion here, and a good brine SG discussion here.

[eVenom]

Thanks! I liked the one on specific gravity

also what I heard is that if you just use whey you need to boil it, saturate it and filter it if you what to keep using it longer that just 1 time

I add citric acid too... just 1/16 tsp because it was only 20 oz of brine

the Feta seemes to be firming up a bit!

[makkonen]

There's also good discussions on why and what to add to brine at Isle of Mull and Cheesemaking.com.

Short story -- a little bit of whey or CaCl added to fresh brine to stabilize the calcium balance, and a little bit of Citric Acid or vinegar to stabilize the acid balance. After a few cheeses have been brined, it should all level out.

Last time I made a weak brine for mozzarella, I added just a little CaCl, but apparently too much, because it ended up starting to make the surface of the cheese slimy within 10 minutes (though that was possibly unrelated) and tasting a little bit like poison. (I find the taste of calcium chloride, even in barely perceptible amounts, to be quite awful, though -- perhaps more than most). Next time, I'll try just a bit of whey instead.

[wharris]

CaCl2 is F'nasty.


I was bored and thinking about it one day and thought,  "Hmmm I add this to my cheese and ask other to eat it, i wonder what it tastes like?"

So I dipped my finger in the bottle up to the first knuckle and sucked it off my finger..That was big mistake.  Tasted like a strong penny that has been soaking in putrified battery acid.


(now how many of you are gonna at least sniff it, if not try it yourself.

[eVenom]

Well it's been 21 Days and I couldn't wait longer so here are some pics!

This Cheese is Very creamy and soft with a sharpness and flavor of regular Feta

Next time I will drain some more and probably ad some weight so that is a little dryer(harder)

I am satisfied with this and will defiantly make some more...

[wharris]

Looks great.  How did you take the pictures?

[eVenom]

I didn't do anything to complicated for the pics..

I just use the remove from brine into counter and snap! snap! Technique!!!

[DeejayDebi]

Very nice looking cheese and photos eVenom

[Cheese Head]

eVenom, thanks for the pictures and thoughts on brine . . . looks great!