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I'm new to cheese making and I tried a chevre last night.  When I looked at it this morning it was still very liquid.  I stirred it and I messed with it a bit so now I'm wondering if there is any hope of reclaiming all that goat milk and actually making it cheese!

Would love to hear from the experienced folks out there.  Thanks much, Lynda

Hey Lynda, welcome.  What sort of recipe did you use for the chevre?  Did your milk set up at all?  Chevre before it is drained should look like yogurt with that soft curd consistency that yogurt has.  You said you stirred it and "messed with it".  What did it look like before you did that?  Any new info would help.

Bonnie

Hi Bonnie:

I used Ricki Carroll's basic recipe:

Goat's milk heated to 86F, added the chevre starter (from Ricki) and stirred.  I covered it and let it sit overnight.  In the morning it looked thick until I began to spoon it into the muslin lined strainer.  There was a lot of liquid. 

I have since put it back in the pot (this is what I meant by messing with it) and reheated it to 86F and added some more rennet.  It is currently sitting in the kitchen but I'm pretty pessimistic about salvaging it at this point.

The goat's milk was store-bought and I did not add calcium chloride.

Lynda

Store bought goat milk is incredibly nasty.  It tastes like a buck goat in rut.  Goat milk is fragile, and processing and transporting starts the breakdown of the proteins.

Source:
http://goatconnection.com/articles/publish/article_75.shtml

Find good fresh goat milk in your area and try again.

Thanks for the reply Alice. 

My main question now is whether I should just dump out the milk in the pot.

Thanks.

Lynda 

Ya know - I would let it sit overnight and try to drain it again in the morning.  The recipe you used sounded  like a good one.  The milk you bought, was it from a local dairy that distributes to your grocery store or was it possibly Myerberg (sp?) goat milk that is distributed around the country?   You said there was a lot of liquid the first time you went to drain the curds.  Typically, there will be quite a lot of whey on the top of the curds and surrounding the curd mass that has formed in the pot.  I sometimes use a measuring cup and scoop off the excess whey before I drain into my colanders.  Even if you still have a lot of liquid, try draining again and you should get some cheese yield from that batch.  What kind of rennet did you use and how much?  How big was this batch of cheese - gallons of milk or less? 

I

I ended that post quite abruptly by hitting some key :-(   But, give it another go and then we can ponder from there.

Bonnie

I use that recipe and starter all the time with raw goat milk, sometimes I pasteurize as the recipe says but not often anymore. When you started to drain the curd, was the whey clear? If so, it was okay; expect about 2 quarts of whey (or more) from the gallon of milk. I get about one and a half pounds of chevre using this recipe.

Lynda, the classic Chevre is a semi-lactic recipe. Unlike Cheddar, Brie and most cheeses, the process is to heat the milk much lower than other cheeses and drop only a hint of acidity starter and rennet; then give the milk very long time to acidify and build a curd slowly.

Once the curd is ready (12-18 hours) do not mix it! Do not re-warm it! You are breaking up the curd you just spent 12 hours making! Just ladle it gently into a mold (or cheesecloth, but mold is much better), salt it and wait another 24-26 hours for it to drain properly before salting it. If you broke the curd by mixing and re-cooking it, your best bet is to try and give it another night and see if it curds together again.

Ricki's chevre mix works well (though I have no idea what's in it, I now mix your own). I am pretty sure that it requires 77F and not 86F. 86F seems too high and will acidify the milk too fast.

Regarding milk: Many goat milk brands that sell at supermarkets are ultra pasteurized . This means they go through a short high temp pasteurization instead of slow low temp process. It saves the manufacturer time and increases the shelf life of the product, which is important when selling goat's milk because consumers don't buy it at the same rate they purchase cow's milk. Unfortunately, this process destroys the milk completely. It kills of active enzymes, removes the grassy aroma and adds sugary buttery flavor that does not belong in goat's milk. Worst, it modifies the protein structure in the milk. This milk will NOT work for making cheese. The rennet won't bind the proteins into a proper curd and the acidity won't change at a good rate. When buying milk you must check to see that it does NOT say Ultra Pasteurized or UHT on it.  Some stores like Whole Foods do have additional fresh selections from local farmers, many of which are grass fed and even organic. These are delicious and really come out brilliantly in cheese. Yuo want the freshest milk you can have. A proper pasteurized goats milk will have an expiration date approx 2 weeks after milking day, so look at the date and count backwards to know when your milk has been milked. If the date on the carton is 3 or more weeks into the future this must be an ultra pasteurized product. I hope this helps

Thanks to everyone who replied!  You are a wealth of knowledge. 

It seems that I did just about everything wrong with this first attempt at chevre.  I'm going to get some fresh milk from a small goat dairy here in Southern Arizona and try again.  I am undaunted!

The first cheese I ever tried was a cheddar.  That worked so well that I think I was over-confident.  I still have so much to learn - the journey is to be enjoyed.

blessings,
Lynda 

I suggest you visit your Whole Foods (not all have local goat's milk but it's worth visiting or calling first). They have stores in Phoenix, Tuscon, Chandler, Tempe and Scottsdale see here: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/

Also, visit this site to find dairies in your area selling raw milk http://www.realmilk.com/where1.html#az

Lynda, I also tried to make Chevre using store bought Goat's Milk which failed, basically as it was Ultra-Pasteurized (for longer shelf life as it's not a very popular product) and thus almost completely biologically dead.