Recipe Post - Vinegar Cheese

Today we have, as promised, a cheese recipe! This is a very simple easy to make soft cheese. You can make it with whole cow's milk, or as I prefer, goat's milk.

Ingredients:
1/2 gallon milk
1/4 cup vinegar
Salt
Herbs/Peppers/Seasonings/Fruit (optional)

To start, we heat our milk. You'll need a candy thermometer that clips onto the side of the pot. I like a stainless steel pot. SLOWLY heat the milk on direct heat. You want it to slowly rise to 175 degrees F.

 

Once the milk is at the proper temperature, remove from heat and slowly stir in your vinegar. The milk should almost immediately begin to change. Cover and let sit for at least 15 minutes, and no more than 20 minutes. 

After 15 minutes, uncover and take a look. You should have curds and whey! The whey is the yellow liquid left after the curds have formed. Gently pour the mixture into a colander lined with quality cheese cloth or muslin. Certain linens also work excellent for this. Tie the curds up and hang them to drain for around 2 hours. The leftover whey can be used to make other types of cheeses or fed to dogs, pigs, or chickens.

Once your cheese has hung, remove it from the cheese cloth into a container. From here, you have free rein! You can mix in whatever seasonings you like, or peppers, onions, garlic. Even fruits to make it into a sweet cheese. You can crumble it, or press it into a block. Once mixed, you refrigerate it, where the flavors will meld together.

This cheese is good for 7-10 days in the refrigerator.