Author Topic: Making goat cheese more "goaty" (stronger)  (Read 3006 times)

Botswanacheese

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Making goat cheese more "goaty" (stronger)
« on: September 13, 2017, 12:59:32 PM »
Hi all

I am new to the whole cheese making so all info is good. I have been using fresh goat milk from my farm and made simple goat "crumble" cheese using the heat and acid method by heating to 82 deg C then adding lemon juice and then white wine vinegar. The cheese comes out crumbly almost like a feta. I took this to a prospective client and they said they would like it stronger??? I assume more goaty, or more rich ??? my goat currently grazes out on grass and gets pellets as a substitute as the grazing is brown dry grass. what could I add to her diet to make it more stronger. Increase in fat/ protein or what. The cheese is very bland if I compare to other goats cheese. Is it my method or could it be my breed. She is s simple local bread goat that we find everywhere in Botswana.
Thanks for your help.

Offline awakephd

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Re: Making goat cheese more "goaty" (stronger)
« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2017, 01:25:04 PM »
Welcome to the forum!

I have made very little acid-coagulated cheese such as you describe, but my understanding is that it is always going to be relatively bland. If you can use cultures to ripen the milk and rennet to coagulate it, you will get more flavor, especially if you let it set a couple of days in a cool place before consuming it. To get the full flavor, you will need to do a longer aging.

Note that I do not have access to goat's milk, so I may be missing something - hopefully others on the board with goat milk experience will chime in!
-- Andy

SOSEATTLE

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Re: Making goat cheese more "goaty" (stronger)
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2017, 01:21:36 AM »
I agree with Andy. Using culture fermentation to form the curd will help. Aging the goat cheese will definitely increase  the "goaty" flavor.

Susan

Offline Fritz

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Re: Making goat cheese more "goaty" (stronger)
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2017, 01:53:52 AM »
Hello Botswanacheese,
Adding Lipase when adding your culture makes cheese more "goaty" ...  I use it when making feta with mixed cow and goat milk ...don't go nuts on the stuff... a pinch will do :)

Good luck!
 

Offline Gregore

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Re: Making goat cheese more "goaty" (stronger)
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2017, 05:23:03 AM »
you need to try a cultured cheese and really long lactic acid set , if you can stretch it out to 24 hrs or more before it hit ph of 4.4 then you will get loads of flavor .

 I would suspect you could make your own culture ..... leave a jar of fresh milk out on the counter over night until the curd seperate from the whey. Then use 1.5% by weight to start a new culture overnight . Do that 3 or 4 times and you will culture out dangerous organisms .

Basically it is goat kefir .

Speaking of which you could also use kefir to set the curd .  That would make some sharp cheese .

Botswanacheese

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Re: Making goat cheese more "goaty" (stronger)
« Reply #5 on: September 11, 2018, 02:39:59 PM »
Thanks all for the info.

I have been using Mesopholic culture and Rennet and been getting good consistency and I have also tried mother culture, does the type of culture used also add to the goatyness? I keep having a hit and miss where some people say it is too goaty and some have said it is too sweet and not goaty enough????????

just to clarify if we let curd and way stand for longer before hitting a PH of 4.4 this would increase the flavour.

If I understand the above correctly this could explain why I am having different tastes as we sometimes find we need it to stand longer to coagulate than other times as our temperature is unable to be controlled or rennet amount is not precisely the same so this makes the time different from batch to batch. guess we would need to then get a ph tester and try be more exact for a more consistent taste.

We have had times where we had the curd feel very rubbery and thus thought it was too much rennet then the next time we put less . Is the rubberness texture due to too much rennet. we only do small batches of 5 litres max at a time so it is a hit and miss with the amount of rennet as we need to break the tablets and guesstimate....

Thanks again for the help

Offline Gregore

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Re: Making goat cheese more "goaty" (stronger)
« Reply #6 on: September 12, 2018, 03:21:20 AM »
First thing with  fresh goats milk you really do not need rennet

What you need to do to get good goats cheese each time is heat the milk to about 89f degrees  then add culture stir for 30 seconds , let sit 24 hrs on counter at room temp.  Curd should have separated and sunk to the bottom .

Drain curd in cheese cloth for  12 hrs,  then add 1.5 percent salt by weight .

If you are making cheese every day then keep some whey from the day before in the fridge and use it at 1.5 percent to fresh milk . 

Offline Gürkan Yeniçeri

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Re: Making goat cheese more "goaty" (stronger)
« Reply #7 on: September 13, 2018, 01:19:47 AM »
A more goaty flavor simply can be achieved by letting the raw goat's milk to sit at room temperature so that caprilic and capraic acids increase. Timing is the essence here as these acids make you feel like kissing the bottom of a goat  :P

Adding extra lipase to goat's milk may interfere with the end results as it already has lipase in it.

Adding CaCl2 will increase the yield and result in a stronger curd which you can play around easily BUT goat curd is very fragile and should be handled like a bride (says old French cheesemaker  ;D )

I made a camembert ones out of goat's milk and now I can't eat cow's camembert as it tastes blunt.

As mentioned you may want to look at aroma cultures to get some stronger aroma blended in with goatyness. Depends on the cheese though.


Offline GortKlaatu

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Re: Making goat cheese more "goaty" (stronger)
« Reply #8 on: September 13, 2018, 06:38:35 PM »
Gürkan is absolutely correct.
Another thing that makes goat milk “goat strong” is to keep a buck in very close proximity. His smell and hormones will definitely create a goatier flavor in the does’ milk.   That’s why I keep my buck FAR away from the girls. And my goat milk is so sweet and rich and creamy that no one believes it is goat milk.
Somewhere, some long time ago, milk decided to reach toward immortality… and to call itself cheese.