How to Develop Flavor of Fresh Chevre

[soniaR]

I'm about to start my second batch of chevre (this one with raw local goat milk). The first (store-bought goat milk) was good, but I felt not that flavorful. I could hardly recognize it as goat milk. Other than letting it sit in the fridge once edible, is there anything else I can do to make it a stronger tasting chevre? Thanks.

[River Bottom Farm]

A lot of chevre gets flavoured with herbs but if that isn't what you are looking for you could add a little Lipase to amp up the flavour a bit

[SOSEATTLE]

Make aged lactic/semi-lactic bloomy rind goat cheese (eg. crottin, valencay). These are my favorite cheeses to make-they are made like chevre, then put in molds to drain. You do need some additional cultures (Geotrichum and Penicillium candidum), molds, as well as some ash if you want to do ash coated. I age mine about 4 weeks and they are awesome, and do have more goaty flavor. I have a batch of crottin style about a week in right now  .


Susan

[soniaR]

Susan - Thank you. This is exactly what I want to start doing, i.e., start making aged chevre such as crottin. I haven't looked at a recipe yet, but I get stuck on the concept of how to age cheese when I don't have a good set-up for keeping a cool temperature required for aging. No root cellar or dedicated fridge, and I don't want to invest too much (money and effort) into this hobby yet. Any suggestions?

Do you use the recipes on cheesemaking.com for your aged chevres?

[SOSEATTLE]

I do have a small wine cooler that I use for my aging, but you can also use a regular refrigerator. A regular frig. runs cooler, so aging time may be longer. I also find a ripening box with a small rack and mat over a damp paper towel very helpful for humidity (something like this https://www.thecheesemaker.com/plastic-aging-containers-includes-draining-platform-mat-two-bamboo-mats/ or this https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C76GCJI/?coliid=ILU53YLWWJDF8&colid=2SDH58KO3UFY7&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it . I don't close the lid completely on the ripening box so that there is some air circulation.

Yes, I do regularly cheesemaking.com recipes, at least to start with. I later develop my own spin on a lot of the recipes too.


Susan