[Sca-cooks] Vitha's cheese

[Kerri Martinsen]

Hello all.. I've attached my documentation for the Cheese entry I did a few
weeks ago.  I'm sending it to Stefan to put up on the web as well.   Incase
it doesn't go thru here was the "jist" of it:

 CHALLENGE:  "You are a modern lord or lady in 1450's Flanders and found
that one of the family cows has a calf that did not survive birth. You have
a neighbor who is in need of colostrum - but not milk. You decide to not dry
off your family cow and instead turn the extra gallons of milk into
non-fluid dairy products for sale and for use to feed your family through
the winter. Estimating that this cow will give you two gallons of milk each
day your challenge is to use every drop of that milk and it's by-products to
help feed your family. One of your goals is to make a cheese that will keep
through the winter, a fresh cheese for daily consumption, butter, and whey
products."

My products were as follows:
1. Semi-hard rennet cheese for long storage & sale (Gouda)
2. Pressed Whey cheese (Zeigerkase)
3. Butter (salted)
4. Buttermilk (from butter)
5. Buttermilk cheese (sweetened with honey & ginger)
6. A soft cheese (acid) for daily consumption (flavored with thyme & salt)
7. A quick "farmer's cheese" for baking & cooking
8. Whey cheese (ricotta) from rennet cheeses
9. Whey for drinking and cooking (bread)

>From 14 gallons of milk I came up with
 1.  9lb 12oz gouda
2.  1lb 10oz Zeigerkase
3.  2lb 13oz butter
4.  1.5 qts buttermilk (some used to make...)
5.  7oz buttermilk cheese
6.  1lb 13 oz "acid cheese"
7.  3lb 2 oz pot cheese
8.  estimated 8oz ricotta
9.  Whey more Whey than you know what to deal with
10.  4 loaves of Whey Bread (2 white, 2 wheat) using 8 cups of whey.

That's a total of over 20lb of solid milk products from "1 week's production
of 1 cow".  Plus liquid buttermilk and whey.

It was a lot of hard work, but it was fun and I'll definitely be doing it
again.  I'm getting better with consistant results on the aged cheeses and
the quick cheeses are becoming second nature.

I'm still munching on the gouda - it is WONDERFUL slightly melted in soup.

The zeiger came out too "winey" for me this time.  I need to watch the wine
to brine ratio closer.

My next bit of research involves meltability.That and "fun with Pot cheese
in the kitchen"

Here's a link to my journal entry with photos:
http://spikywheel.livejournal.com/352446.html#cutid1

Vitha
Dadts a gouda cheese.....


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