The Long Awaited Chevre!

We added two goats to our herd, GoGo (short for Happy Go Lucky) is in milk and Tiger Lily is a sweet yearling from a good milking line who we will breed this winter. This brings us to a total of 8 goats, 3 are being milked daily. Next spring 4 will be able to have kids so we will have a barn full of babies. Because of this purchase, and my increased experience after a full month of milking, we are now in the milk! Looks like we are averaging 7-8 cups a day which means we have enough to make chevre. As the new goat settles in and our babies are weaned we will easily be able to double this amount I think. So much dreaming and planning that went into getting to this point that the cheese we made and brought to our friends' summer party last night was way more than cheese, it was a celebration of the whole past year!

The process takes almost 24 hours. After the evening milking, we put 2 days worth of milk in the pasteurizer. This beast has been laying in wait in the cupboard for some time and was ready to get to work. The directions are very old school. At the point where everything is plugged in and ready to go it says: "Now go about your business until you hear a loud buzzer." Every time I was inclined to stare at it in the 20 minute process, Chris would laugh and tell me to "Go about my business." While there is hot debate about the benefits of raw milk versus the health risks, I decided to play it safe with my cheese. I want everyone to feel completely comfortable eating it, including little kids and my older relatives whose immune systems are not as strong. I figure the fact the our cheese is made from milk that was in the goat hours before makes it infinitely healthier than anything I could buy, so I can give up the potential health benefits raw milk offers.

After pasteurizing I added the chevre packet of starter bacteria, rennet and malto dextrin. This premixed and measured packet is sold by New England Cheesemaking Supply. Later in the summer I will experiment with my own mix, but for now this makes the process super easy! Although there does not appear to be anything happening, the magic begins instantly. I cover the milk and set it out in the kitchen, and by the next morning after milking, it has formed into a substance that looks and smells a bit like yogurt.When I moved the pot, the cheese moved as one jiggly mass.

At this point I knew we were going to have cheese, but there was still another 8-12 hours wait until we could taste the product. Almost exactly a day after we had begun the process, the curds had stopped dripping whey and we were ready to add delicious herbs and arrange our cheese plate. Tess and Lila have both been helping with the milking this week and are getting really good, so we divided the cheese into 3 parts and each made our own delicious recipe. Tess used fresh and dried Dill with a citrus blend of salt. Lila used Herbs de Provence and salt, I used fresh ground black pepper, salt and rosemary. 3 girls + 3 goats + 3 days=3 delicious cheeses. We watched the cheeses like they were our children all the way to the party and observed with proud smiles as all three disappeared within minutes after arriving. MISSION accomplished! It was smooth, goatie and delicious. Honestly, I think is was better than store bought goat cheese.