Urban Farm Hub

Here’s a post from the archives!

The taste of fresh chevre is good beyond belief and when paired with fresh fall beets and pecans I feel like I’ve reached a gardener’s Valhalla.  Surprisingly it’s not that hard to make.  If you don’t have goats then check out your local farmers market.

Here’s my daughter with Biggie and Smalls.

First your goat needs to give birth.  This starts her milk flowing.

Milking a goat is way easier than milking a cow!

Next you need to learn how to milk.  This is a fairly easy thing to do but I found that I was using new muscles and I was kind of sore for a while.

Make sure your bucket is clean and your goat doesn’t kick it over. They love to do this towards the end of milking when they want to get down from the stand.

A gallon of milk is what most recipes call for.

Here’s the fresh milk in a pot on the stove.

Heat the milk to 160 degrees Fahrenheit to pasteurize it then put it in an ice water bath to cool it to 86 degrees.

I ordered this culture on line and it works great.

Add culture, stir and let sit for twelve hours.

It’s pretty amazing to see the transformation.

The curds are soft and almost creamy.

I got these molds on line as well.

Spoon the curds into chevre molds to let the whey drain off.  This takes about 24 hours.  The longer you let it drain the drier your cheese will be.

This is after about 24 hours of draining.

Once the cheese has drained take it out of the mold and cut it into the desired size.

I like doing small rounds so I can use lots of different spice mixtures.

I like to roll the cheese in herb and spice mixtures.

Ready for crackers or a luscious salad!

The first row on the left has been rolled in zahtar, an oregano based spice mix from the Middle East.  The second row in a Thai spice and the third in a Japanese mix of toasted sesame seeds and salt.