I tried my hand at feta for the first time this weekend...I have several long aging cheeses in the cave and was anxious to make a cheese that I could eat right away!
I just made a 1 gallon batch (raw cow milk plus mild lipase), following Caldwell’s recipe to a T, except for the fact that I used Aroma B instead of Flora Danica.
The make seemed to go well (only exception being that my curds were pretty poorly cut, but I feel like that is a bit less important in a fresh soft cheese). I hung it up to drain and acidify, which the recipe said should take 6-12 hours and get down to ph 4.6-4.8...well, mine hung for a cool 42 hours and only got down to 5.0 before I decided to move to the next step! I attribute this to my house being colder than usual at the moment, and the fact that my milk source tends to buffer a lot. Also this batch of Aroma B was responsible for an incredibly slow acidifying Gouda I tried a while back, so maybe I need to go heavier than usual on the culture next time.
The cheese is currently in the dry salting phase. I already know it won’t be properly crumbly because the ph didn’t get down enough, and I have to imagine that the prolonged time hanging in cloth will affect the texture too (probably lost some excess moisture in the process). It smells good though so I’m sure it will be edible!
I’m going to try again in a couple weeks and age it in brine for 6-8 months as discussed in Caldwell’s book...I’ve never had long aged feta before so I’m interested to try. I also want to maybe boil some herbs or spices and add some of that flavored water to the brine...does that sound like it would work?
