Creamy Chevre

This isn't the cheese that my mom and I had intended to make. We set out to follow Cheesepalooza's second challenge but thanks to a teeny tiny mistake we didn't end up with a traditional chevre. Our resulting cheese had consistency of cream cheese with a super smooth texture and a delicious tang.

If only all my mistakes were this delicious.

Our day of cheese began exactly by the book. The first step for cheese making is washing and sterilizing all your equipment to ensure that the only bacteria introduced to your cheese is the bacteria that you intentionally put there. So our pans and scoops and strainers were all washed and then rinsed out with a diluted bleach solution. Bye bye bacteria!

The we loaded up our pots with goat's milk and started to bring it to temperature. It was supposed to take around 20 minutes to get the milk to about 86 but our milk hit the mark after only 9 short minutes.

We fretted about the quick temperature change ruining our cheese but there was nothing to do but move forward.

The next part was easy: let the milk sit at around 72 degrees for 12 hours. After 12 hours we were excited to lift the lid because there was supposed to be a solid mass of curds floating surrounded by whey.

But instead there was very very soft curds that had a bit of whey separated from them.. but nothing like the book had described. We tried draining some of the curds but they just broke down and headed straight for the drain.

We weighed our options and decided to let the milk sit over night and see if the curds were better formed in the morning.

 

The next day the curds were still very soft so we doubled up our cheese cloth and carefully poured them into a strainer.  They were so delicate that we couldn't hang the cheese cloth without breaking the curds and turning them into liquid.

So the curds just sat there in the strainer draining..

and draining..

and draining. For two days. I changed the cheese cloth a couple of times and after a day was able to hang it properly. The cheese finally thickened up to a consistency of a soft cream cheese. We decided that it wasn't going to get any drier and at this point it had been at room temperature for days longer than the recipe had called for.

 

Initially we blamed the fact that we had heated the milk too quickly, then we wondered if we had held it at too high of a temperature for the first 12 hours.

But there ended up being a much more simple explanation for why our cheese didn't form the proper curds: we had used the wrong starter.

D'oh.

We had added Mesophile II instead of the C20G that we were supposed to have used.

 

We decided to make the cheese again correctly but in the mean time the creamy, tangy chevre was eaten and enjoyed extremely quickly.


I have to admit that in the past I've always been concerned about keeping dairy products in the fridge and stored properly. It felt strange just leaving this sack of dairy product hanging at room temperature for days on end. But once I spread it on some toast with a drizzle of honey I knew that we had done the right thing by waiting it out and not tossing the curds when they weren't working as planned.

We did go on to make a successful batch of traditional chevre that I'll be posting about later. I just felt that even though this batch was technically a failure it was too tasty and we put too much time into it (much more time than the successful batch) for it to just be a side note. It deserved an entire post to itself: an ode to the cheese that we'll probably never make again on purpose.

• Appearance: very white and creamy
• Nose (aroma): tangy goat cheese scent
• Overall Taste: More flavor than a mild goat cheese. Flavor is smoother at the beginning with a tang at the end.
• Sweet to Salty: Salty
• Mild (mellow) to Robust to Pungent (stinky): Mild
• Mouth Feel: (gritty, sandy, chewy, greasy, gummy, etc.): Very soft and creamy like a cross between mascarpone and cream cheese

 For the challenges we are working from Artisian Cheese Making at Home (go out and grab a copy if you are interested in making cheese, there is a lot of great information in there along with the recipes).

Comments

[Addie]

It looks like what you got was more like yogurt (just meso culture+milk will give a type of yogurt) since you probably had less than the necessary amount of rennet.

I remember getting this outcome once with Val but the cheese is still delicious - and your pics are awesome.

[Mardi (eat. live. travel. write.)]

This looks amazing - what a delicious mistake!

[Amanda @ Once Upon a Recipe]

What a beautiful mistake! That piece of toast is making my mouth water!

[Melissa@EyesBigger]

I was actually thinking about you this morning while I was making a galette that called for goat cheese and wondering how you'd got on with your chevre. Sometimes mistakes turn into happy accidents and it looks like this was a good one. Will look forward to your "successful" chevre post soon!

[Eileen]

Oh man, what a lucky mistake! I can't say I'd mind an accidental bounty of goat cheese falling into my lap. :) Eager to hear about your next attempt!

[Deb]

I have taken a cheese making class, but have not tried any of the recipes at home! Your creamy goat cheese is just the inspiration to motivate me to give it a try! Your "mistake" is scrumptious!

[TasteHongKong]

Hmm... looks creamy enough, isn't it a pleasant surprise as well?

[Sahar]

This is such a great idea, to make cheese every month. Very brave too, I'm terrified of trying. But you're ricotta post makes me feel like I could do it...

[christine @ wannafoodie]

I found this to be a tough one too... I used the Aroma B and rennet in my first attempt and lacked the patience to recover it. My second attempt with buttermilk was a bit more confidence inspiring, so I hope to try the Karlin method in the future. Good luck with the next challenge!

[Paula]

I agree, this *failed* batch was too good not to deserve it's own post and I'm glad you posted it.
Still in awe of you and your Mom's dedication to this project.

[Renee]

So cool you are making cheese! Your "mistake" looks brilliant. Can't wait to see the rest of your cheese-making adventures!

[noobcook]

the creamy batch look really delicious to me!

[hena tayeb]

Mmmm that looks so good and that little green bowl is so cute.