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mixing cow and goats milk - problems in getting a good curd

Started by broombank, April 04, 2023, 07:50:02 PM

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broombank

I have recently been experimenting with a mixture of organic cows milk pasteurised and not homogenised, with goats milk , both pasteurised and homogenised ( the only goats milk available to me) in a ratio of 10:6.  I am having problems getting a firm curd with normal amounts of fresh animal rennet. I have a sense that the specific gravity of these milks is different and the lighter ( the goat) is floating on top of the cows milk and because it is homogenised is making a very weak curd. Today I ended up in a mess by trying to add more rennet after 30 minutes - this did improve matters but the process of having to stir a half formed curd led to a very uneven curd size. Why am I doing this? Because I'm trying to make Spanish Monte Enebro or something like it.  This involves rubbing the final salted curd with Penicillium Roqueforti and then finally with food standard ash.  I have made this twice with some success but wanted to increase the amount of goats milk to get a more intense flavour. This seems to have been my undoing as it has affected the rennet. I wondered if any of the old hands here have any thoughts about this? I would really appreciate your take on it.

B e n


broombank


Bantams

I suspect the issue is in the pasteurizing temp or the homogenization, not the mixing of two types of milk.  I've mixed milk many times and never had an issue - but the milk was raw or low temp pasteurized.