My First Cheese (its a feta)

[spiraleddie]

Hi All,
          Yesterday i made my first cheese and i think it turned out well. I decided to make a feta as i could age it in brine in the fridge and i could have a bash at cheesemaking with out as much of an outlay, not to mention feta tastes pretty good.
i used  the recipe supplied with my feta cheese kit as supplied by an online store called 'Cheeselinks' (http://www.cheeselinks.com.au/).
I used 8L of store bought unhomogenisd guernsey milk and lipase was added. Vegetabl rennet was used and i used a mesophilic starter culture.
I used an Ikea plastic tub of about 13L size to make my cheese in, i just floated it in the kitchen sink with warm water in and an aquarium heater set on 34oC ( ripening temp of 32oC) which all in all, the set up was quite satisfactory and maintained a nice constant temp.
I got a clean break in the curd after 60minutes of undisturbed ripening and i then cut the curds, i ended up with some fairly large curd chunks but i managed to reduce their size during the half hourly cut curd stirring.
I placed the curd into the rectangular baskets but i ended up too much curd ( not a bad things id say) and so i put the last of it into cheesecloth to hang. The curds in the baskets got turned about 3 times over six hours and then left a further 8 hours till morning.
I cut the cheese in the morning into ~ 1 inch cubes and placed into a 14% brine solution i had made up the night before. The cheese seemed slightly soft/spongy but it rebounded quickly.
At the time of cutting the cheese tasted like feta minus the salt. This evening the wife and I tried a cube after being in brine for about 12 hours and we both thought it tasted good, albeit a bit salty but i guess when taken straight out of brine and eaten it will tend to be salty.
Some  things Im curious about is the use of iodised salt, ive read that noniodised salt is best but after brineing i remembered i hadnt bought any non-iodised and used the normal variety, am  I to anticipate anyproblems with the use of iodised salt?
Also i wonder about the use of CaCl2, the idea of adding it to the brine to help with Ca equilibrium in the solution and cheese seems reasonable, and i was wondering if its needed still if you have good acid levels and no sign of softening etc.
Anyway here are some pics of my cheese. Thanks

[susanky]

I haven't made feta so can't answer your question.  But great pics.  Thanks for sharing.  The aquarium heater is a great idea!
Susan

[clherestian]

If you are not having any trouble with the cheese getting slimy or melting in the brine, then you don't need Cacl. I never use it for feta. If the cheese is acidic enough, you won't have any trouble.

[Tea]

Great pics, and they look just like mine.  I usually get 6 of those square baskets out of 10 litrs, so I would think that for 8 liters you would need at least 5.    I also add fresh herbs and garlic to mine for something different. 
Tupperware has a slice container that will hold 6 beautifully which means that the cheese is not drowning in brine.
If the cheese is too salty, just put some in milk about an hour before you need it and the milk will remove some of the salt.

Here the link to pics of the container that I use.

http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,190.0.html

[spiraleddie]

Hi, i made another Feta on the weekend with pretty much the same results, i cut the curds a little smaller so i can get a crumblier feta but i cant really see the difference yet.
i ended up with 1.5kg of cheese from 8L of milk which appoximates a % yield of 18.8% , is this what i should expect from feta with cows milk? i did notice there was quite a bit of butterfat on the surface which i had to top stir back in.
this weekend i hope to make a feta with olives and sundried tomatoe.
my last cheese i took some to work and gave some friends a try and they all raved how good it was, i was pretty chuffed.
i looked at your container TEA and it looks like a goer, im just waiting till my wife goes to another tupperware party and i may pick one up.Do you find your cheese is less salty? and woudl that mean that you have drawn most/all of the salt from the brine and that there may not be enough for preserving? just less solution means less salt available and so you may diminish salt in solution.

[Tea]

Well the saltiness will mainly depend on the percentage brine that you use.  It is usually advised that there only be a small amount of brine surrounding the cheese, otherwise it can be too salty.
In that container, as long as the kids don't put dirty fingers into it, I can store the feta for at least 6 months, but the brine needs to be covering the cheese.  So as it get used, I put it into a smaller container, or make sure that I regularly turn the cheese in the brine.

HTH

[reg]

Hi Tea, was waiting for you to post so I could jump in and say hello. Hope everything is going well for you

Reg

[Tea]

Reg!!  Hey how are you?  Have been thinking of you, and wondering how you were.  How are things going?  Have you been making any of your wondering Alpine cheese?  I have tried it a couple of times, but the overnight temps I think, have been too high.  Still wanting to make a successful one.
Just got around to ordering in some prague powder, so I now have #1 & #2, so all set to make something.
So glad to see you back. You have been missed.

[reg]

I'm well Tea, thanks for asking. Glad to see you are ready to go with the sausage making. Have made a few posts on the sausage  forum here so I guess we had better talk over there.

Reg