I haven't made cheese in about 4 years, but the cheese making itch came back. I'm presently in Greece, and while there are many great cheeses available here, I still like to do things on my own.
I am waiting on some cultures to arrive (hard to find them here in Greece along with other home cheesemaking supplies). I did manage to get my hands on rennet (it's sold in pharmacies here) and calcium chloride.
I had some success the first time 5 days ago with a feta style cheese - without a packaged culture. Instead, I thought I'd try and see what would happen with some whey that I had strained from yogurt I had made.
That went okay. It's cow's milk and with no lipase, probably will taste bland, but I really had an urge to get back into.
So then, a couple of days later, I got some goat's milk - 6 litres, but 2 of them are marked as 4% m.f. The other four at 3.5%
This one, I inoculated the milk with the whey from the cheese I made a couple of days earlier. More of a "let's see what happens.." kind of thing.
I brought the temperature of the milk up to about 32C (90F) and poured in a 1/4 cup of the whey, and let it sit for an hour.
Then, I added rennet - I am pretty sure it was the same amount that I had used the couple of days before - 3/8 teaspoon in the 6 litres
I checked it 45 minutes later, and it hadn't set. An hour later - same thing.
Ninety minutes later - still not set.
The temperature had dropped a bit, so I turned the stove burner back on to low (or so I thought), and thought I'd give it another half hour or so - just to see I would ever get the milk to set.
But I got busy doing something else, and totally forgot. It was several hours later, I smacked my head... ran to check things. I discovered the temperature had increased to over 40C (104), and I realized I had turned the stove on a bit too high - medium low!
BUT - I had some thickness in the milk, but couldn't really cut curd. It was kind of like yogurt.
I thought to myself.... "well... let's see what happens if I drain the way while this is hanging in my handy dandy bandana (that I've been using as a substitute for cheese cloth)".
I actually have something that is tasty. But I can't identify the taste. It's thickened up while hanging - in the sense it is now like a strained Greek yogurt consistency - perhaps even less whey than what you would find, and has an almost creamy taste with a tang, and a touch of sweetness.
I salted it and decided to let it drain another day.
Does anyone have any ideas why in the first place, the rennet did not seem to work as expected (it was from the same bottle that I used two days earlier, with an expiry date of next year, and kept in the fridge after opening)? But then after some hours, it did create something where whey could be separated from curd by draining?
Have I made something that might have a name??
Thank you for your thoughts!
Ian