[Sca-cooks] Cheese Making, also Gjetost/Mjetost

[Sue Clemenger]

I haven't yet ventured out into the realms of hard cheese making,
although I'd like to, because I lack anywhere to store the durn stuff as
it ripens (trust me, my cats can find _anything_, especially dairy
stuff, and freshly washed fabric).  So the cheeses I've made, so far,
have all been the soft spreadable stuff, made using vegetable rennet
(only stuff I've found locally).  I found I had better results if I
doubled the amount of recommended rennet.
Regarding the making of gjetost/mjetost....it's a liquid for a long,
long time (took me about 24 hours to cook it down).  As it simmers, the
water (non-scientific term, but y'all know what I mean, you know you do
<g>) slowly steams away, and the milk sugars carmelize.  The stuff gets
thicker and thicker, so, especially at the end, you really have to watch
to make sure it doesn't burn or scorch.  If you get it to a soft fudge
consistency, you can pour/spoon it into a bowl or whatever, and it will
continue to stiffen as it cools.  If you want it softer, take it off the
heat before it gets quite as thick.
--Maire

C M Bucheger wrote:
>
> Recently there was some discussion about cheese making and some of the additives that are required, specifically the calcium- something or another that someone asserted that without, the curds would not come if using homogenized milk.  I was a little puzzled by this as I've made a couple of batches of cheese using unhomogenized and homogenized milk from a local nonhormones-and-other-additives dairy and also a regular gallon of milk from the local HEB, using yorgurt and/or lemon juice as a curdling agent and got about the same results.  Curds were not especially big, but they were there and I had cheese.
> Still I was ready to try cheese using "real" rennet, so I ordered a kit from cheesemaking.com and made a batch following Markham's receipt with a gallon of milk from HEB.  It was not good.  After waiting an hour for curds and not getting any I added some more of the rennet.  I think I almost had curds at this point.  I drained the curds and got a ball of soft cheese that was half the size I had gotten from a half gallon of milk.
>
> So it seems to me, using the vegtable rennet does require this additional additive to make cheese using homogenized milk, while other curdling agents may not.
>
> Alexandria
>
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