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Domiati Cheese Recipe?

Started by tomn, May 20, 2014, 07:10:53 PM

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tomn

Hello,
I'm new here and would like to introduce myself. I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and have been making cheese for about the past 6 months. So far I've only made soft cheeses – chevre and fromage blanc but would now like to try something different.
Several years ago while traveling through Egypt I came across a cheese I really enjoyed. It was pure white and wet (like feta) but creamier and less crumbly than feta. I searched the internet and found that it was most likely Domiati. I'd like to try making this cheese at home and I'm wondering if anyone had a recipe for it.
I found a couple recipes online (one I tried this past weekend) but both are completely different. One uses thermophilic cultures (this is the one I tried) and the other cultured buttermilk. I don't really know how to make sense of this.
By the way the cheese I tried to make on the weekend was a complete failure. My milk did not set at all. I don't know if it is because the temperature got too high on me – it was supposed to be 41°C (110°F) but rose to around 50°C. More likely is that my rennet is no good. Its expiry date is 05/2014 so it may just be too old. I will test it once I buy more milk.

Have a great week everyone!

OzzieCheese

Hi Tomn,

Mate, I think you cooked the milk too much and if you added the rennet at the 50 Degree point, it probably was deactivated by the heat.  The Domiati recipe calls for a long coaglation period 4-6 hours and doesn't use a culture. The recipe I have only uses heat and rennet to create a really soft curd that drains for 24 hours and then let hang for an extra 4-8 hours until the desired consistency is reached.  Because there is no culture the result can be a little bland and the recipe suggests add a little Lipase.

Hope that helps
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