Zfatit Cheese Making Recipe

[Webmaster]

Member home-cheese (Hila Shefer) emailed in this Israeli cheese's recipe and picture:

Ingredients

• 3 liters full cow's milk pasteurized @ 73c
• Freeze dried DVI Mesophilic Starter Culture such as Flora Danica
• 2 teaspoons household White Vinegar (5% Acetic Acid)
• 0.8 teaspoons Calcium Chloride
• 4 drops of vegetarian Enzyme/Rennet
• 2 tablespoons of water
• 3 tablespoons salt
• Optional = Herbs/Olives
• Makes 600-800 gram cheese

Procedure

• Warm the milk to 38-40C.
• Add the – vinegar, calcium, f.d culture to the milk and stir.
• Dilute the enzyme/rennet in the water and stir in for 15 seconds.
• Place milk in a warm place for 45-60 minutes for curd to form.
• Cut curd into 1.5 cm cubes.
• Mix gently for 2 minutes.
• Wait 10 minutes and mix it gently again.
• We wait 7 minutes and mix it gently again.
• Remove whey equal to 30% of the volume of milk.
• Add salt and optional herbs and mix.
• Place curds into 500gr or larger draining mould.
• Drain cheese for 3 hours, turning every 30 minutes.
• Drain cheese for an additional 6-8 hours.
• Store cheese at 4-8C until consumed.

As fresh cheese it has a short shelf life.

[Alex]

As Hila and me passed the same class, I'd like to make some remarks concerning this wanderfull cheese recipe.
CaCl should be 0.8 grams, just a pinch. As starter, buttermilk may be a very good substitute. As for the vinegar, it helps to the coagulation, but adds some foamy texture on the surface of the curds. Since I've learned a lot from this forum and from books, and vinegar is never mentioned in cheese making, I stopped adding it. So, it can be omitted. All my cheeses turn out wanderfull. About shelf life, as I make this cheese very often, according to my experience, after 10 days in the fridge, it tastes like made the day before.
A highly recommended cheese.

[Tea]

Thanks Hila and Alex.  I love the baskets, where did you get them from?

[DeejayDebi]

I ran across this recipe or one VERY similar awhile back and wondered what it was. It looks almost like a riccotta or cream cheese.

[Alex]

Although it's a nice basket (but quite expencive), I make Zfatit in a Camembert mould. It's the one at the right of the picture, in front is a Ricotta.

BTW - The name of the cheese is after the ancient city of Zfat (Sefad) where the cheese was first made 180 years ago by the HaMeiry family.

[Tea]

Alex what a beautiful selection and presentation.  Congrats to you.  Can you tell us what all the cheeses are?

[DeejayDebi]

Looks great Alex!

[Alex]

Thanks Tea & Debi, the occasion was my son's 30's birthday celebration.
The cheeses served were, CW starting next to the grapes:

Brie, rind washed with beer, final result a bit too dry
Pepper Jack
Cheddar, traditional, although with an accident during pressing it was terrific
Camembert
Semi-Lactic cheese
Zfatit
Ricotta

Muenster (in the middle)

[Alona]

Hi guys, it's my first time in making cheese. I have a question about the mesophilic culture. How much of it should you put, say, for 3l of milk. I live in  Belgium and bought a pack of 5g. Confused at the moment. Please, help!

[awakephd]

Hi Alona,

Welcome to the forum! As a future reference, you will probably get more/better responses if you start a new thread rather than adding to an old one - but that said, we're pretty flexible here, and this is a great resource full of friendly and helpful people!

How much culture to use depends in part on what sort of culture, as well as what type of cheese you are making. As a rough guide, though, for many recipes I generally use around 1/4 tsp of culture for 4 gallons of milk, so for 3 liters, that would work out to something less than 1/16 tsp.

[Alona]

Hi Andy,
thank you for your answer. i wrote my question here as I am trying to make a Zfatit cheese, and this was the only thread for it)). I had a couple of problems yesterday while making my first cheese, so have no idea what shall come out in the end. The culture I used is Lactoferm, that's the only one I am afraid I can get here in Belgium. The content is 5 g, and it says it's for a litre of cheese culture.
Anyway, yesterday after an hour of waiting my mixture didn't want to become curd, so I dared to add more rennet and mesophilic culture. and left it in a warm place for the night. Let's see what comes out tonight.
I am very excited about my new interest and am very open to all advices). Thanks again.

[awakephd]

Ah, I get it - that makes sense, and it means my question about which cheese is also answered!

The packet says 5g for just one litre of milk? Wow, that seems very different from the cultures I'm used to using. But in general, follow the packet - so at the least that suggests dumping the whole thing in. Still hard for me to believe it would take that much, but ...

[Alona]

I know, specially if in one of the recepies it says to use a small quantity (whatever it means)), and in another one - 0,15 g for 5l. Weird. I am still waiting for the result.
What culture are you using? maybe I should just order online something everyone uses.

[Alona]

well, my first experience is a disappointment. My zfatit is not zfatit at all. No idea what went wrong, I guess, miscalculation. Hope next time shall be better.

[awakephd]

Alona, I would do some further digging to see what is available on-line that will ship to Belgium. One would think that Belgium would be in a resource-rich region when it comes to cheese production ... unless, perhaps, the resources are all geared towards commercial production rather than home/artisanal quantities.

The recipe at the top of this thread calls for mesophilic culture. Something like Danisco MA011 would be the basic mesophilic culture, and should work. They also mention Flora Danica, which is basically a mixture of the same culture as in MA011 plus an "aroma" culture such as Danisco's MD088; the latter adds additional flavor, but would not be able to acidify the milk on its own. I'm wondering if by chance the culture you used is more like the MD088, a flavor adjunct culture rather than a primary acidifier.

The amounts called for on the package still don't make much sense to me. Unless by chance there is a missing decimal point? 0,5g rather than 5g?