What happened to my chevre?

[tfinney]

Hi folks!

 Today was my first attempt at making chevre. I followed the recipe on this site with the exception of using one gallon of goats milk and adding calcium chloride since I bought the milk at a grocery store. I slowly raised the temp to 185 F and then stirred in the vinegar ans calcium chloride. It says to remove from heat, cover, and let sit for a few hours. Mine's been sitting now for six hours, and nothing has changed! It looks like I have a pot of expensive useless milk now. What happened, or what did I do wrong? I'd appreciate any insight!

Thanks!

[FRANCOIS]

Sorry to break the news ot you, but you now have a pot of uselss (and tangy) milk.  What you attempted ot make was not chevre, but an acid coagulated fresh cheese.  You should have added vinegar until you coagulated, there is no "ripening time" for this type of cheese since there are no cultrues in it.  Chevre is made by adding culture (and rasing temp to about 78F) and a tiny amount of rennet.  You then wait for the pH to drop and curd to develop. 

You could attmept to reheat and add more vinegar...

[tfinney]

Thanks Francois! I appreciate your input. I THOUGH that this was kind of a different recipe. It's on the cheeseforum site, though. I'm not sure who I would talk to about maybe updating the recipe. After I had waited about eight hours, with nothing happening, I looked up other chevre recipes on the web and saw that they used rennet in theirs. Next time, that's what I believe I'll do. Anyway, I ended up pitching the whole batch.......

[FRANCOIS]

I just read that recipe.  It's very misleading, although technically possible.  You need to add enough vinegar to get a soft set, but not a hard set.  It would make a tangy, soft cheese like chevre, but it is definately not chevre.

[tfinney]

 Thanks again for your help. Maybe next weekend I'll try chevre again, only with a different recipe. Do you have a favorite that you can point me to?

[FRANCOIS]

Chevre:
Heat milk to 82F
Add MM100 per Danisco activity directions
Allow to cool to 78F and wait for 0.2 pH drop
Add rennet per manufacturer specs for soft cheese
Cover and let ripen to 5.4-5.5 pH, maintain 78F temp.
Scoop curd and allow to drain to desired consistency (usually overnight)
Salt curd to taste, if still too wet allow to drian further.

[Webmaster]

tfinney, very sorry for mis-leading you, I don't know where I got that "Chevre" recipe from, I've just updated it with Francois's (Francois, hope you don't mind).

Any other corrections changes just PM me.