Making Chevre?

[Lizza]

Hello All,

I wanted to really try and make cheese this year. Last year my one attempt went horribly wrong (feta, I think I "saved" milk for too long).

I have the Home Cheesemaking Book by Rikki Carrol and bought her Goat Cheese Kit.

With Chevre do you pasturize the milk first? We drink our milk raw and am just curious if I will need to pasturize first to make some of the cheeses? She has directions in her book, which is I think is 145 for 30 min. but will have to double check.

THANK YOU!

p.s. please no raw milk debates, plenty going on in homesteading questions if anyone wants to debate about it

[Liese]

Well, since chevre isn't an aged cheese - tho it freezes well- technically/legally the milk should/must be pasturized but if you are already drinking unpasturized milk then you could use raw milk, but not sell it in NC (where I am). The pasturizing process is a seperate part, not affecting the cheese process per se. If you are making an aged cheese that goes 60 days or more than you can use unpasturized milk and still sell (in NC) Hope I'm being clear here.

[13Blackbirds]

We make it just fine without pasturizing. You need to get the milk to 85 degrees to begin the culture but that's hardly pasturizing.
It works fine for us with raw milk.

[Lizza]

Thank you both, that's what I needed to know

We aren't selling it, only eating it ourselves. Although we actually do and can sell raw milk legally in Oregon.

[jerzeygurl]

pasturizing can help kill off competing flavor bacterias giving you a more consistant cheese, but does weaken the curd


i use raw for aged cheeses

and pasturize for fresh

[Lizza]

Originally Posted by jerzeygurl

pasturizing can help kill off competing flavor bacterias giving you a more consistant cheese, but does weaken the curd


i use raw for aged cheeses

and pasturize for fresh

Thanks Jerzeygurl. I could use all the cheesemaking help I can get. I was wondering because some of the the Home Cheesemaking recipes say "fresh milk" and don't have anything about pasturizing and some say "first pasturize if you are using fresh milk". I'll have to read more but it didn't look they all said to first pasturize, so I was confused. Nothing lasts very long around here (family of 9, I have to make about 14 loaves of bread a week just to keep up) and we don't mind things being a little unconsistant but I would like decent cheese