Home Made Cheese 3: Feta

Cheese making is the art of removing whey from curd. There are a million ways to do that, which is why there are a million types of cheese.

A 2 oz bottle of rennet.

This week's featured cheese is traditional Balkan style feta. This cheese introduces a new ingredient that is critical to many cheeses, rennet.

Rennet is an enzyme which was traditionally derived from a calf's stomach.

Yes, you read that right. Don't worry, modern cheese makers don't have to use calf rennet. But a long time ago, people used all the parts of an animal. Nothing went to waste.

Think about it. It's the perfect place for breaking down milk.

How was rennet discovered as an ingredient for cheese making? Nobody wrote down the first time that the discovery was made, but it's easy to imagine. Back in the day before glass, steel, and plastic containers, people used animal membranes for transporting milk. Somebody used an animal stomach and when they went to drink it, discovered that it had turned into curds and whey. Curdled milk was not new to them, but this was a different texture of curds.

Raw milk will naturally clabber and become curds and whey when left out at room temperature as the native bacteria multiply and acidify the milk by turning the lactose into lactic acid. The cheese in last week's blog, labneh, is made by draining a bacteria fermented acid-set curd from the whey. Acid set cheeses are soft and pastey, like cream cheese.

Rennet set cheeses, on the other hand, are more rubbery and pliable. Cheddar, Swiss, and colby are typical rennet cheeses. They melt at high temperatures. The whey can be drained more thoroughly than acid set curd, which allows longer aging. Rennet set cheeses open up a whole new world of cheese making possibilities.

You can buy rennet already made and ready to go. There are several types of rennet available now.

Microbial rennet is used to make most commercial cheeses. It is produced in large vats by fermenting micro organisms that have been genetically modified to create rennet enzymes. It is similar to calf rennet, but is not made from calf stomach.

Vegetable rennet is made by extracting enzymes from thistles, which makes it a good vegetarian option. The down side to vegetable rennet is that it can create bitter flavors in cheeses that undergo a long aging process.

Calf, lamb, and kid rennet are made by extracting enzymes from young animal stomachs. They are the traditional rennet used in most hard cheeses and produce excellent results. Most artisan cheeses are made with animal rennet. Unlike microbial rennet, they are not GMO. They do not create bitter flavors in aged cheeses. Rennet from the different species contain slightly different enzymes, which produce different desireable flavors.

Rennet can be purchased easily online from home cheese making suppliers, and even on amazon. For occasional home cheese making, a 2 oz bottle will last a long time. Store rennet in the refrigerator. It's helpful to have a set of measuring spoons that goes down to 1/32 tsp for measuring rennet and powdered culture.

Powdered and tablet forms of rennet exist, but for ease of use I prefer liquid.

Balkan Style Feta

The beauty of this cheese is its simplicity to make. It only uses a gallon of milk and is fairly hands off compared to other rennet cheeses. You don't need a cheese press or a cheese cave, so it's accessible to a casual cheese maker. The cheese is ready to eat immediately, or it can be aged for a few weeks for a stronger flavor.

It's worth noting that because of the high acidity of feta, it doesn't melt like most rennet cheeses. Don't worry, next week's blog is going to be about 30 Minute Mozzarella, which is a quick and easy way to make super melty cheese!

Equipment needed:

• large pot with lid

• large spoon

• measuring spoons that go down to 1/32 tsp

• thermometer

• real cheese cloth (not the stuff from a grocery or hardware store)

• large bowl

• towels or a small blanket

• a place to hang curds in a cheese cloth from, such as a hook or a wooden spoon perched over a pot

Ingredients:

• 1 gallon raw milk (UP or UHT milk will not work)

• 1/32 tsp mesophilic culture*

• 1/8 tsp rennet

• 2 tbs or more NON IODIZED, chemical free salt (not himalayan salt, either, because it might make the cheese gritty)

*For an explanation of mesophilic culture, please see last week's blog.

Start this in the morning because it will take most of the day.

Pour milk into the pot and heat until it reaches 90F. Add the mesophilic culture and rennet. stir thoroughly for about 30 seconds.

Put the lid on the pot and wrap it in towels or a blanket to stay warm. Let it sit like that for 4 hours.

At the end of 4 hours, remove the wrappings and the lid. The milk should have become like jello and the curd should have starting pulling away from the sides of the pot.

With a clean hand, stir the curd and break it up into small pieces. Let it rest about a half hour, then pour off the whey that is above the curds and stir it again. Repeat this one more time for a total of three times stirring the curd.

Stirring curds with a clean hand.

Lay the cheese cloth over the bowl and scoop the curds into the cloth. Tie opposite corners of the cloth together to form a bag and hang the bag over the bowl. It will be dripping whey in a steady stream. After a couple of hours when the curd has formed into a fairly solid ball, remove the cloth from where it was hanging, open it up, flip the curd ball upside down, retie the cloth and hang it again to continue dripping.

Curds hanging in the cheese cloth, dripping whey.

This ensures that whey is expelled evenly, and it helps the curd ball be a more uniform shape than it would be otherwise.

Give it an hour, then flip the curds again. Let it hang at least a half hour after the second flip.

Now it's time to remove the cheese from the cloth. Cut the cheese into 1 inch thick slices, and cut those slices into 1 inch cubes

The curd ball ready to be flipped the first time.

Put the cheese cubes into a storage container and sprinkle them with the salt. Try to get an even amount of salt on each cube, as much as possible.

Alternately, you can leave the cheese as 1 inch slabs and salt them in larger pieces.

Let the cheese sit absorbing salt on the counter overnight. The next day you will notice that there is no more undissolved salt, and the salt has drawn a good bit more whey out of the cheese. It's ok to leave the salty whey with the feta during storage.

Your feta is now ready to eat, or if you want a tangier and saltier cheese, you can make a brine to pour over the feta and let it age longer in the fridge.

To make brine, save a quart of whey and dissolve 1/3 cup of salt in it. Pour this over the feta so that all pieces are covered. It will last for months in the fridge this way.

Enjoy feta crumbled on salads, over cooked vegetables, in an omellete, on pizza, in spanakopita, or with pasta!

Feta cubes after being salted over night.

What is your favorite way to eat feta?