Question about the look and feel of my curd

[Roof Possum]

Hi I am new to this but my partner is Russian and we had always made sour milk,   curds and whey,  though it was always unsatisfying because we hadn't realised that all the packaged milk here was UHT.   The whey tasted ok, but the curds were almost non-existent and flavourless.

Then I found a source of raw cow's milk at the local dairy market here, and today for the first time tried acididifying using lemon, in the way we always had done, to separate the curds from whey.  I can't really describe my excitement at what a difference it made, the curds seem to separate almost straight away into a huge "chunk" of something which, to my untrained eye, looked almost like a lump of bread dough.....it wasn't the usual small "clumps" of cottage cheesey type curds, but one mass of almost "gooey" looking curd.   

The raw milk and the whey were delicious , the sour milk from it was refreshing and tangy, and I feel so ecstatic that we seem to have found a good source of raw milk.

But what about the "gooey ness?"  Is this normal ?  It looked more like bread dough there under the greenish whey.

Has anyone else had this with raw milk ?  Thanks for any info and help.   Joe.

[MacGruff]

LOL.

Yeah, that's normal. You took the first step towards making a cheese. Warm up the milk first to just under boiling. Then add the lemon juice. Put the "goeey curd" in a cheesecloth,  and allow it to cool and drain for a while (a couple of hours). Then taste it.

Have fun!

[molly]

Are you trying to make ricotta or cheese from raw milk?  In Poland just put the raw milk on the counter for a fresh cheese if you are using pasteurized milk you can add butter milk that has the enzymes ( I think it is enzymes ) to start the process with no heating or acidification.  Ricotta is made by heating to 190F and adding vinegar or lemon juice.   

[Roof Possum]

Thanks to you both, things have progressed a bit since this post, and now I am getting the hang of it, thanks again!