Making chevre cheese from our home-milked goat milk
June 24, 2008 in cheese, Food Porn, Humble Garden, Local Food, recipe
(This was cross-posted to Humble Garden)

We are enjoying our independence from the food chain. We get our eggs and our milk (and now cheese) from our backyard. We eat our salads from our backyard.
If you don’t now, what are you waiting for?!
If you think food prices are high now, you will be pale with shock soon enough. Think oil-based fertilizers, oil-based pesticides, oil-run tractors and trucks, think floods, think drought, think 2008.

The seed companies are reporting a 40% rise in seed sales this year (they were shocked, didn’t see it coming, these people need to get on the web more often).
Now that the baby goats are not such babies and are fully weaned, we have more goat milk to work with. We go through less than 1 gallon of fluid goat milk a day for Baby O (who adores goat milk and is sensitive to lactose in pasteurized cow milk).

Our milking doe, Torte, gives us about one and 1/2 gallons of milk a day. Over two days, we then have one extra gallon of milk, works out nicely.

You may or may not know that it is hard to make cream or butter from goat milk because the fat doesn’t separate out (because the fat globules are smaller and stay spread out, like its been homogenized). We could make it if we bought a $400.00 cream separator but thats not going to happen! I love goat cheese just fine.

We will be getting a jersey cow/calf to have super high quality milk, cream, and butter. I can wait for that.
Back to the topic for today.
It is VERY easy to make chevre but it takes a few days, you simply have to be patient.
We are using milk we pasteurized for this batch, we may go raw with he next batch.
We used a chevre starter from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company, I can not recommend them highly enough.

This little packet is enough for one gallon of milk. This could not be easier, you just bring your milk up to (or down to as the case may be) to 86 F and sprinkle the starter in. Mix well and let culture at room temperature for 12-20 hours.
The curd sets up and excludes the whey.
You then slice it up a bit so that the mass of curd is broken up and more whey is excluded.
Remember that all of the equipment being used must be sterilized.
We bought the plastic chevre molds from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company which I cleaned very well.
These are well worth the cost and will last a long time.

Using a sterilized slotted spoon, you scoop out the curds and begin to fill the molds.


One gallon of milk yielded three molds worth of cheese.


Once they are filled they go on a wire rack over a pan or bucket to catch the dripping whey, cover the tops and let sit at room temperature or in the fridge for 2 days. They will shrink a lot.

After the two days, the cups were no longer dripping and the cheese was quite firm and much dryer.

This cheese tastes unbelievably fresh and, I think, uniquely ours. Its a fantastic feeling to sit down to a salad that we grew topped with chevre we made from our own goat. I watched Torte munching on tree bark in our backyard as I nibbled on the cheese.
Resources:
You can’t imagine how much I envy you, if I ever go to the States you can be sure I will come and see you! He he
Nika, your cheese is gorgeous, and I can imagine the taste is clean and fresh, too. We live midway between two farms that make goat cheese, which is the next best thing to making it ourselves. A bit of cheese, a warm tomato from the garden, a bit of chopped herbs — it’s one of my favorite summer snacks.
Absolutely beautiful chevre…I bet you could sell it at Farmer’s Markets! Someday I will come and taste it.
Nika- What a fabulous post! Beautiful Baby O! Eggs, goat, cream, chevre- you have it all. I’ve been floored by food prices here in Santa Fe. $5 for an artichoke? $8 for a modest bunch of asparagus? You’re lucky to have the land and opportunity to “grow your own”. Not to mention, some formidable talent.
Plant artichokes! They grow brilliantly from seed, survive anything and give you lunch all summer. [They are only thistles with attitude.] Asparagus, I buy too – about $10US a kg at the moment, because it’s early spring here in New Zealand.
Cheers, Heather
If I had enough room I’d be right there with the goat and the chicken! For now, we recycle rain water and grow lettuce, tomatoes and herbs. Absolutely fantastic post!
Ilva:: Goodness, you are absolutely welcome here any time! Think of all the cheese we could make
Lydia: Its awesome that you get to live between the two goat farms! I have to say, having goats is wonderful because these goats are such sweethearts, hard to explain but they are just sweet.
The chevre really is sweet and just enough tanginess to be like chevre should be.
Karina: I can not believe how expensive your food is, truly astounding. You are closer to the veggie farms (California) but it seems your foods are more expensive! What price is your milk at now? (not so sure about the talent .. I think these things are possible for just about anyone!)
Tartelette: I need to set up rainbarrels too! So glad you liked the post. Hope you much luck with your garden, you are growing some of the best summer veggies around!
Thanks for this post! I have access to as much raw goat’s milk as I want for cheese-making, and I was just blog-googling looking for recipes and resources. Bookmarking this one!
Great post! I am in for the growing food part, but not sure I can carve out the time to make my own cheese. I do admire you for doing it though.
(BTW, I switched to short feed for the same reason and have never looked back. Not sure why it took me so long to get fed up, but now when I see my shortened posts on those scraper sites, I just laugh!)
Being the mother of a 4 year old son and the weekly milker of 2 Ober-Hosleys myself, I appreciate the photos of both gentle beings.
I am a California city dweller but I use what little space I have (and the water from my baths and laundry) to grow what I can and now belong to a urban farming co-op too.
Thanks for the tips on Chevre, I am preparing to make my first batch Friday.
[…] recorded first by piss666off on 2009-01-25→ Comment on Making chevre cheese from our home-milked goat milk by Kitt […]
[…] the chance to give these products a run. As you know, I have my own dairy goats and I make chevre (Making chevre cheese from our home-milked goat milk) and yogurt from this home-milked milk (The world is in a Ferment – also – homemade Yogurt). Its […]
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I am glad to find this helpful info. I have extra raw milk i dont want to freeze.
(she grew up on a farm)
I want to share with u,that when i could only buy frozen, from a grade A farm, i could make butter.(nubian)? i think they were. My mother-n-law laughed at how excited i was to see cream fall and turn to butter
I am not sure if the freezing takes nutrients but
send me some info. if it does. I have looked everywhere. Even realmilk.com!
Thanks again 4 this info. and beautiful pics. it helps 2 see it.
Rebecca:
Glad it helped! We freeze colostrum for baby goats which seems to have zero negative impact on the live cells, antibodies and other goodies in the milk that newborn kids need to survive. I would say, freeze away
[…] are up to 2 gallons a day). I blogged on how to make chevre cheese from goats milk some time ago – Making chevre cheese from our home-milked goat milk. Its quite easy and I do it now on a daily basis! Only difference between the chevre I make and […]
Just the one goat, lovely Meep who makes milking time a pleasure. Really love your page – we’re just into spring now in New Zealand, so made my first chevre today, which is why I looked you up. Regards, Heather
[…] To read the entire article go to: http://nikas-culinaria.com/2008/06/24/homey-chevre/ […]