Hi from Newbie in Central France!

[Jooliree]

Hi all,
I'm Julie originally from NE Scotland but now living in the beautiful, rural department of Creuse in the Limousin region of France. We have a smallholding and a small flock of goats and sheep as well as the usual chickens, ducks and geese. We have a large vegetable growing area, two acres of pasture and 4 acres of woodland as well as access to a neighbour's 3 hectares of meadow for grazing and hay. We aim to be as self-sufficient/sustaining as possible.

I started making cheese many, many years ago in Scotland when I had a couple of British Saanan does and have recently taken this up again with the start of our little herd. We are currently getting around 5-6 litres a day from our motley French crew! I started with a basic chevre after instruction from a French neighbour and then onto a semi-hard tomme under instruction from Austrian/German neighbours. All went well initially last year as well as halloumi,feta and mozzarella. However, this year has been blighted by continuous presence of bubbles in the cheeses, all cheeses, and a spongey texture. I have tried pasteurisation and sterilisation and moving production to the shower-room (we are currently living in a little two-roomed cottage whilst renovating the old farm-house) as I wondered if bread-making in the kitchen has lead to a build-up of yeasts in the air?- I seem to be able to make really strong wild-yeast leavens in this kitchen so guess there are healthy natural yeast populations here! Also the cottage is terribly damp and humid.
The cheese doesn't seem to have a noticeable off smell yeasty or bad, just spongey and plasticky ( where it should be soft and spreadable - chevre, etc) Could it be something other kind of contaminent? Is it still safe to eat/cook with? or should I give it to chickens and neighbours pig?!

I got so fed up of wasting time and resources in the Spring that I started freezing the milk whilst waiting for an alternative location - I now have two large freezers full of milk -hence trying again in the shower-room!

I'd be grateful for any suggestions - BTW I am awaiting delivery of a cream separator/butter churn from a Ukrainian supplier, has anyone had any experience with these?

À bientôt!

Julie

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

Welcome to the forum Jooliree. Looking forward to your input.

[Cheese Head]

Bonjour Scottish Jooliree, welcome!

No advice on separator / butter churn, suggets you search the forum. Our Wiki: Body Defects, Mechanical Holes article has some common causes.

Assume you are using your goat/sheep milk raw. At what stage/when do the holes appear?

Making bread at same time as cheese is a common cause of swelling, search board for "Swell Yeast" and you'll find several threads.

[Jooliree]

Thanks for your words of welcome -
I have had a good look through the wiki-archives and the problem pages and feel it is a yeast contamination. I am going to persevere in the shower-room and sterilise the s#1t out of everything and pasteurise the milk.

Yesterday I pasteurised 4 litres of milk to make a simple soft cheese as a test , added the culture and rennet  - this morning there was a perfect set and I ladled the curds in slices into a previously sterilised cotton pillowcase and hung it up to drain. I will wait and see.

As a rule, although I have had completely bubbly curds in the pot, the bubbles appear during the hanging/draining stage or in the moulds during the draining phase, where the curds have been textbook with whey on the top before ladling out.