[Sca-cooks] Some info on cheesemaking

[Dragon]

Stefan li Rous wrote:

>You don't have to have raw milk to make good cheese, though. While
>pasteurization and homogenization both have an effect on milk, some
>of the problems with modern milk have more to do with the fact that
>even "whole" milk has often had much of the cream skimmed off and
>sold separately. Sometimes this can be offset by adding some cream
>back in. You will find comments about this in that file, though.
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Yes and no. IMO, raw milk gives the best flavor and allows you to 
make very firm cheeses similar to parmesan. Pasteurized milk does not 
produce curds that are as firm as those from raw milk. This can be 
slightly offset by using calcium propionate with pasteurized milk but 
you can't completely duplicate the results you would get from raw.

Ultra-pasteurized milk is pretty much useless (IMO) for making 
anything beyond very soft cheeses. Don't waste your time with it, 
your yields will be low and the curds will be very fine and soft.

Homogenization can actually be an OK thing when making a whole milk 
cheese. It helps keep the butter fat dispersed throughout the cheese. 
Using raw, un-homogenized milk would require more intervention to 
keep the cream from separating during the curdling process (a 
practice known as top-stirring is used).

As for the amount of cream... different cheeses are made from milk 
with cream and from milk without. The harder varieties are usually 
made from skim milk while the softer ones include more cream. Skim 
milk is not necessarily a bad thing for cheese making, it all depends 
on what you are trying to make.

Dragon

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