No-rennet kefir cheese

[BBQer]

Well, I couldn't resist another experiment. Making cheese from kefir with no rennet, or other cultures , or calcium cloride.

Just heat the milk to 140F. Add the kefir slowly while stirring gently and the curds form nearly instantly. Strain the curds add salt and eat it, if you want cottage type cheese or press it if you want a hard cheese.


The drained curds with some crushed red pepper.


Pressing the curds.


Out of the press to dry for a few days and then age. Added crushed red peppers and cracked black pepper.

[BlueCheese]

LOL, totaly Cool !!! have made Kefer myself but mostly yogurt. Still have Kefer culture so might try it, probably wont melt, have u tried ?

[saucisson]

I'll try that then, I'm also just trying Greek Yoghurt cheese, gently straining a litre of thickset yoghurt for several days.

[BBQer]

Haven't tried to melt it yet. It needs to dry for a few days. Then maybe age for a bit more. Was pretty easy to make though.

[BlueCheese]

By the way, u have the pepers in their, i advise u to either wax it or salt it heavaly so they dont go mouldy.

[BBQer]

Thanks BC!

Maybe salt it and wax it both! LOL

Funny, as I was dicing up the dried red peppers, one had a white "brie" like mould inside it. I didn't use it, but I wondered at the time, if I did use it would I end up with a "pepper brie" cheese?

[BlueCheese]

LOL, dont thingk its the same type of bloom, at least I would be a bit hessatant to eat it

[saucisson]

BBQr, I've got a kefir grain on the way so can you post in a bit more detail how you made the cheese ie approximate quantities? What sort of kefir it was you added etc

Thanks,

Dave

[BBQer]

BC, I'm sure you're right. It looked very similar though, but I didn't feel brave enough to chance it.

Dave, I followed the recipes from this kefir website http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html#more_uses_for_kefir

The Kefir Cottage cheese and the Kefir Mascarpone.

I let my grains (about 1 Tbsp per cup of milk) ferment the milk for about 48 hours instead of the usual 24 for drinking consistency. It had turned a bit too thick and tart for my liking, so I had to do something with it. That's when I turned to the cheese recipes.

The Cottage Cheese recipe, which I used for the pressed cheese didn't quite pull enough curd from the milk (I was using store-bought whole milk and didn't add any calcium cloride). I took what curd formed out, and then upped the temp from 140F to 190F. As the temp went up, more curd formed. Just to get every last bit, I cheated and added white vinegar (1/4 cup per gallon) which pulled quite a bit more curd from the milk. Raw milk probably would have worked better.

The Mascarpone I let curd for 48 hours instead of the 24 the recipe calls for (again maybe because it was store-bought milk), then hung it to drain for 12 hours.

Mascarpone - is that Italian for "cream cheese"?

[saucisson]

Thanks BBQr

[BBQer]

A follow up on the experiment. The mascarpone turned out great.

The pressed cheese was a bit of a disappointment. After pressing it for some time (24 hours or so with the last 12 hours at about 50 lbs.), it looked pretty good. I let it dry for five days, but it felt very spongy. Never really felt like a hard cheese. Toward the end of the five day drying period, it developed a split, so I cut it open. The inside looked like pressed cottage cheese. Still pretty wet inside. It tastes okay, so we're eating it.

To my inexperienced eye, it looked like the curd hadn't got rid of as much whey as it should have for a hard cheese. But also in my inexperience, I haven't a clue as to what to do in the process to get the curds to eliminate more whey.

[saucisson]

Thanks again, my grain should be here soon so I will have a play.

dave

[BlueCheese]

usualy its the "cooking" that expels the whey.

[BBQer]

Thanks. Next time I try this type, I'll cook it longer and see how it goes.

[BBQer]

Fortunately the Kefir Mascarpone turned out fine.

Here it is draining.


And finished.




And my first brie seems to be looking okay so far. Sunday it'll be 5 weeks old (aged).


Are these photos too big and taking too long to load? I can change them to smaller ones like at the top of the thread.