chevre from powdered goat milk and intro

[sd1951]

Hello everyone
I am new to this cheese making process.  I have done simple cheeses in the past Queso Fresco, drained yogurt, that sort of thing.  I have recently been trying my hand at rennet cheeses, mostly cheddar type, making and technique has gone quite well, taste still to be determined, will find out in a couple of more months.

I am looking to make chevre, but I do not have access to fresh goats milk.  There are a couple of farms I can go to but it is illegal to sell raw milk and the goats milk at the market is ultra-pasturized.  My question is can I use goat milk powder.  My local store sells it in the organic section both whole and non fat.

If I can use it what kind of water should I use for reconstitution, bottled, distilled, de-ionized (our tap water has a lot of chlorine, smells like a swimming pool in the summer)

I thank everyone in advance for your help

[linuxboy]

goats milk at the market is ultra-pasturized.

This works fine for chevre.

[dttorun]

Last week I tried to make goat blue cheese and got a gallon of 3.8% goat's milk. Even after 5 hrs it did not coagulate. I heated up to 180F and added vineger to salvage it but even this did not work. I checked the bag, it did not say `homogenized` and I was thinking it is because of pastaurization...

[iratherfly]

sd1951 - You would be better off with the ultra pasteurized stuff than the powder. My advice is to pre-ripen the milk. Add ripening culture to it and refregirate it for a day or two first so that this sterilized milk begin to grow some lactic bacteria that would being back some of its original flavor qualities. It will help. Also you will need to use Calcium Chloride to get a reasonable curd set and yield.

dttorun - Goat's milk is never homogenized. It is naturally homogenized milk coming out of the goat.  I am not sure what you did as a recipe but it's a bit odd; goat's cheese is lactic or semi lactic and this coagulation takes 12 to 24 hours in low temperature.  The quick acid/heat recipe is quite bad for it and alters the texture and flavor. You get some mock ricotta if anything out of it.