Hi, all! For the past few years, my partner and I have been keeping Kinder goats (50:50 Nubian:Pygmy). Lately, our trusty old milker Harriet is giving 3 pints a day, and with only two of us using her milk, our consumption doesn't keep pace with her production. (We used to give the surplus to our heritage pigs, but we no longer keep pigs.) To complicate matters, four other does will be kidding soon, and once their kids are weaned, we'll be awash in milk.
Meanwhile, I'm getting a little bored with making ice cream, butter, yogurt, mozzarella, ricotta, and the odd fresh cheese. They're great, and of course I'll keep making them, but it seems silly to be buying colby, cheddar, pepper jack, and parmesan if there's a reasonable chance of making them myself for next to no cost.
That brings me to why I'm here. I'm cash poor but milk rich, and while I'm no cheese connoisseur, I'd like to try using our delicious goat milk to make some of the hard cheeses, and maybe even an occasional brie or camembert, using as little in the way of expensive equipment as possible. This means no pricey imported cream separators, cheese presses, seamless stainless steel molds, pH meters, or top-of-the-line wine storage coolers with digital temperature and humidity indicators. But maybe I'm being unrealistic.
For example, I was considering using a 6"-diameter metal coffee can, with both ends cut out, for a cheese mold for parmesan...until I discovered that, with a surface area of about 28 inches, the weight required to exert 20 psi would be
560 lbs.
Not to mention that I can't tie up our spare fridge for 2 years straight, just for the sake of a parmesan that, in the end, may turn out to be total piece of crap. Okay, maybe parmesan isn't going to happen after all.
Anyway, I'll be keeping an eye out for tried and true cheese recipes that call for goat milk, as well as economical ways of getting the job done. And though I've read a lot on both sides of the issue, I'm also interested in what folks might have to say about making cheeses from raw vs pasteurized milk.
PS--I do understand that, due to their proprietary nature, I could never make
real camembert or parmesan, but--well, you know what I mean.