Making yoghurt and cheese is a traditional technique to preserve surplus milk. Soft cheese lasts lasts only for a few days (stored in the refridgerator). Hard cheese lasts for a few weeks to months.
Requirements[edit | edit source]
- Yoghurt requires souring, yet no rennet
- Soft cheese requires no souring, nor any rennet
- Hard cheese requires souring, aswell as rennet
Production[edit | edit source]
Yoghurt is simply by simply mixing soured milk (or alternatively other, live, yoghurt) with milk and allowing the mixture to go sour.
Soft cheese is made by simmering (semi-skimmed) milk in a pan, turning off the heat and adding lemon juice. Seperate the curds and whey.
Hard cheese is made by mixing soured milk with 1/2 of a batch of whole milk and allowing it to go sour. Then, another 1/2 of a batch of whole milk is added, everything is then heated to 30°C, and rennet is added. Curds are seperated from the whey and are heated again (to 39°C). The curds are then pressed into cheese blocks with salt added at the top and bottom of curd layers (25 gr of salt for every 500gr of curds).[1]
Souring milk[edit | edit source]
The process of souring milk does not mean to just allow milk to go off. Rather, souring milk is done at (above-)ambient temperature (at 21°C) and this for a relatively short period of time (24 hours). By contrast, milk that naturally goes off in your refridgerator does so at 7°C, and this at a much longer period.
Notes[edit | edit source]
Another (easier) method to preserve surplus milk is to make it into milk powder. This method has the advantage that it lasts far longer than cheese or yoghurt.
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Practical self-sufficiency by Dick and James Strawbridge