Author Topic: what happened to my fetta???  (Read 1545 times)

Leasa

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what happened to my fetta???
« on: December 24, 2011, 04:01:14 AM »
I make a beautiful goats milk feta.  No let me re-phrase, I usually make a beautiful goats milk feta.  I have made this cheese so many times and it is always perfect. so much so that I have told myself "I will never buy feta again" .  That is until yesterday. I had no distinction between my curd and whey.  It looked OK when I cut it but when I went to stir I realised it was just a thickened milky mess.  Looked over what I had done and could see no difference from any of my previous batches.   left for another hour still no good.  added 50% more rennet wait 2 more hours, still the same.  I decided to stain and see what I get, it took about 36 hours to drain in the cheese cloth and now looks like very thick ricotta. think I will put in a mould and let time decide its fate.  If anyone can give advise to what has happened or what I have now made that would be fab. :-\      PS MERRY CHRISTMAS

boothrf

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Re: what happened to my fetta???
« Reply #1 on: December 24, 2011, 05:31:08 AM »
Hi Leasa,

I have made Fetta a couple of times  only so far, and both times have worked out well for me. I use cows milk, and i have learnt that longer time fafter cutting with lots of stirring gives me a much firmer fetta, which I prefer. My thoughts on your current problem would be:

The problem seems to be with either the milk or the rennet as you could not get a good curd.
Was there anything different about your milk this time, such as age, storage temp, treatment (homogenised, pasteurised..I assume not as you are milking your own goats??)
Rennet type and age...same as previously used?
Rennet storage conditions...refrigerated?
Rennet quantity.....double check your calculations?
Temperature when rennnet added?

Apart from those thoughts, I don't have any other suggestions. It is a shame as I guess you were hoping to use it for Christmas  :(

Hope you get some more suggestions, have a great Christmas,

Bob




Leasa

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Re: what happened to my fetta???
« Reply #2 on: December 24, 2011, 07:25:43 AM »
thanks bob.

My own goats.  I wish, one day maybe.

Yes everything was exactly the same. same brand, same storage, same temps, times and so on.  Oh well we live and learn, alls good!
leas

Cheese Head

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Re: what happened to my fetta???
« Reply #3 on: December 24, 2011, 02:50:24 PM »
Hi Leasa, sounds like as Bob says a poor rennet coagulation. I agree with Bob, either your milk or rennet changed or your method (amount of rennet, what diluted in, how stirred in etc changed.

I had a batch once where I didn't get a good rennet curd set so after an hour I also added more rennet, that was a mistake as by adding the rennet I broke up what little curd set I had creating 1000's of tiny poor quality curds which sounds like what you described as ricotta curds.

The fact that you added 50% more rennet and still didn't get a set but are using your own goat's milk suggests that the milk has changed, I'm not a farmer but there are several threads I think in the milk board on how milk changes over the lactation year, maybe that's what changed.

Lastly, if I now get a poor rennet coagulation, and have used mesophilic starter culture, I just let it sit and proceed to use it to make a lactic curd type light cream cheese.

MrsKK

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Re: what happened to my fetta???
« Reply #4 on: December 24, 2011, 07:05:54 PM »
Are you using liquid rennet?  I did my first year of cheesemaking and it was fine.  Then the cow dried off and I had a three month break from making cheese.  When the cow freshened again, the rennet was really weak and would not set curd at all.