Hi all. I'm a bit new at making cheese and this site has been a great help. I'm looking at making my first Gouda this weekend, but I have a question about milk. I use a pasteurized, non-homogenized whole milk to make my cheeses. I live in Canada, so our milk is sold in bags. I give the bags a shake to mix up the milk and cream. But I've noticed a couple times that the milk has "clumps" in it. These clumps taste a lot like butter. And I've noticed that when I heat the milk, depending on the cheese, it either melts and looks like oil bubbles or stays as yellowish clumps. I notice most of this gets lost in the whey.
So I'm wondering, do I initially heat the milk til the buttery clumps melt and gets incorporated into the cheese or do I just ignore it and heat the milk as per the cheese recipe?
I appreciate any comments.