Learning how to make goat's cheese...

At the end of February 2013, I went to Leaning Oak in Mudgee New South Wales to take learn the ancient art of making cheese. Leaning Oak has workshops about once a month with the wonderfully informative artisan cheese-maker  Gloria. She is one of the owners of the farm (sharing the responsibility with her husband) and they make fantastic cheeses from their very own herd of sheep and goats.

The goats & sheep are a happy group.  They are well cared for and it shows.

We began the trip by getting into Mudgee on Friday and staying at a Farmer's Daughter Wines The Rose cabin. We booked a couple of months in advance to ensure we had somewhere nice to stay and very nice it was!! The cabin was a well equipped two bedroom, each with their own en suite, full kitchen, and living area.  I would definitely recommend them to anyone who wanted to stay near Mudgee proper and visit the area.

Cabin at Farmer's Daughter Wines
 791 Ulan Road, Mudgee, NSW

On Saturday, we awoke refreshed and after a light breakfast of oatmeal, we headed over to the Leaning Oak farm to begin our class to start at 9 a.m.  We were so excited and raring to go that we actually got there at 8:30 a.m. and consequently, had a bit of time to get to know our fellow class-mates (max class size of 6). There was another couple that had a herd of goats and were looking to learn how to make cheese from their milk. Also present was a lady who once had a herd of Boer goats and was interested in learning about cheese making as well. Those three, and our group of three made up the six person class size that worked so well together.

Once tea/coffee were drunk and visiting was finished, Gloria came in and explained what we were going to do on our first day and checked to see if we had brought our extras (change of shoes, ice cream or other containers, and an optional apron) from the list she had sent us in advance of the class.  The extra shoes were for cleanliness, one for out in the dairy/on the farm, and the other for inside the cheese making room.  The containers were for bringing your cheeses back home in and of course the optional apron was to protect your clothing in case of spills.  Once all the ground work was laid, we went off to try our hand at milking the goats the old fashioned way.

Milking goats by hand is not as easy for some as it was for others. The process is time consuming and the milking machine makes faster work of it. Makes much more sense to machine milk than it does to try and hand milk but the experience of doing it that was is something that will not be easily forgotten. The goats are harnessed in a milking bay and they are given grain to eat while they are being milked.  They are perfectly content and happy with not a care in the world.  The milking machine is quick and efficient.

Happy goats, waiting to be milked

After milking, we go back and change our shoes to go into the cheese making room.  The first thing we are taught is how to pasteurize the fresh goats milk.  We use the double boiling system with the stainless steel jug of fresh milk sitting on a trivet in a vat of boiling water. Heat the milk to 68 degrees Celsius and keep it at that temperature for 2 minutes.

Once you have pasteurized your milk, you must bring the temperature back down to make cheese.  Putting the milk container in a cold water bath will accomplish this quickly.  Keep an eye on the milk to ensure that the temperature only comes down to about 34 degrees Celsius. Decant about 3 litres of milk in one container for the fresh cheese and about 6.5 litres into another for making feta. Everything should be sanitized appropriately before hand.  Cleanliness is very very important here. No unwanted bacteria need apply!

Measuring out the milk

Once you have the milk measured out and at the right temperature, you add your starter to the containers and mix. Use a stainless steel spoon to mix with but never wood. Wooden spoons can harbour bad bacteria that you don't want in your cheese.

Starter: It has the consistency of runny yoghurt

Once you have added the amount of correct starter (bacterial controlled milk that has been mixed ahead of time) needed to each container of milk, you stir it in gently for about two minutes with a sanitized stainless steel spoon.  You want an even mixture but don't be to vigorous with it.

Supplies: Milton Anti-bacterial solution, Liquid Calcium and Vegetarian Rennet

Next, measure out the rennet and the calcium into separate containers that a little cooled pre-boiled water has been added to. Add these each to the milk one at a time and gently stir for approximately 2 minutes to distribute the calcium and rennet evenly. Do not stir the mixture to much or the milk will split and create a separated product that is useless in making cheese.  Luckily, we didn't have this problem.

Rennet and Calcium containers

Just a little side note for those interested; The reason we add calcium is that it fortifies the protein in goat's milk to aid in coagulation. Goat's milk does not contain as robust protein as cow's or sheep's milk. The rennet makes a firmer cheese creating curds and whey.

After adding these products and stirring the milk, maintain the setting temperature and wait for curd to form.  The room will need to be kept warm during this process to encourage the cheese to set. In about 90 minutes, the curd will be ready to cut. The process for checking to see if it is, in fact, ready to cut is to first cut a vertical incision and then a horizontal one across it.  Press gently downward until you see that the curd is firm and the whey has an opaque greenish colour to it. Test #1, have a reasonably transparent whey. If the whey is milky, give it some more time.

Checking the curd

For the feta, cut the curd by cutting straight down in even 1 to 1.5 centimetre lines and then again across the grain, equally spaced apart. Cut at an angle next to have basically cubed curd.  Test #2, does the curd hold it's shape when cut at an angle?

Cubing

Note: The curd should actually go down to the bottom of the container with the whey on top.  Floating curd is a sure sign of contamination.  

Next, stir and lift the curds with a sterilized stainless steel spoon. This process needs to be repeated several times at certain intervals. Once the allotted time is complete, the curd gets hooped.

Gloria has these beautiful stainless steel draining trays to aid in the whey extraction process.  At home, you can use a baking tray with a wire rack over it.  If I ever get to the point where I'm making cheese frequently, I will definitely invest in one (or more) of these trays!

Leave the cheese to drain in these hoops for a while and turn them on timed intervals. With gloves, grab one hoop and turn it into your opposite hand. Put the hoop down, turn the cheese over into you other hand and re-hoop it. The following pictorial shows this process.

Step one

Step two

Step three

Step four

Step five

Once turned a few times and at the correct stage, put the cheese in containers. The feta will go into a brine solution and the fresh cheese will go into a container on it's own lightly salted.

Brining

Day two of our workshop focused on making Camembert/Brie and blue cheeses.  The process was slightly altered with the addition of moulds but still very similar to the steps taken the day before. The entire process from start to finish is not nearly as difficult as I had imagined it would be. We had a fabulous time and made some new friends along the way. We've eaten the fresh and feta cheeses already. They were absolutely the best of their kind that we have ever had. The Camembert and blue cheeses are still ripening away and we look forward to eating them soon.  

The finished feta cheese

I did not have the space nor the inclination to get very detailed on this process. I have left out a great many important things and would recommend that you not utilize my post here as the way to make cheese. Seek out an experienced teacher or even a book on the process. Gloria is a wonderful teacher and I would recommend her workshop to get a good understanding of the entire process. If you have the desire to learn about making goat's milk cheese, Leaning Oak is a wonderful place to do it. The location is idyllic and the cheese sublime. If you go, drop me a line and let me know how you liked it.

Stay tuned for my next post in which I will show you a recipe that I created using one of the feta cheeses we made during this workshop. Until then, bon appetit!