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
- Yoghurt requires souring, yet no rennet
- Soft cheese requires no souring, nor any rennet
- Hard cheese requires souring, aswell as rennet
Production
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
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
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
- ↑ Practical self-sufficiency by Dick and James Strawbridge
