Kate's Raw Milk Butterkaeser Cheese
A mild snacking cheese with soft texture, perfect for those who dont like strong cheeses.
Ingredients
- 4 gallons whole raw milk I'd call this a 1"-2" creamline type cheese. Dont make it if your creamlines are really slim. Low fat milk makes firmer drier cheese
- ⅔ cup whey strained from yogurt
- 1 teaspoon double strength animal rennet
- 18% saturated brine
Instructions
- Warm your milk to 102F.
- Add your yogurt whey, stir well, cover and let sit 40 minutes.
- Dilute your rennet in ¼ cup water, stir into your milk.
- Cover and let sit 35 minutes. Dont forget to set timers for everything!!
- Check for clean break. To do so- stick your clean finger or butter knife in at a 45 degree angle and gently lift up towards the surface. The curds should break fairly cleanly in a line over your finger (its okay if it breaks to one side or the other, the point is they are not ragged and mushy) If it doesnt break clean, let sit another 5-10 min.
- Using a long knife such as a bread knife, cut the curds horizontally, then vertically in ½" strips, so that you're left with a grid. Dont stress about it being straight or perfect, you're just aiming for ½" and it will be what it will be! Let sit 5 minutes.
- Stir the curds for 20 minutes, stirring about 50-70% of the time.
- Let curds settle for 5 minutes.
- While the curds settle, figure out your water. If your tap water is what you use as drinking water and not heavily chlorinated, you're going to use that. If not, get 2 gallons of your drinking water heating up to approx 120F.
- Remove half of the whey, about 2 gallons, until you cant easily get whey out without curds trying to get in your scoop too.
- Add in 2 gallons of hot tap water or your heated drinking water, to get the liquid level back to where it was (you should see a mark on the side of the pot from when the curds were coagulating).
- Stir your curds, and check the temp- it should be about 108F. If its not, turn the pot onto medium-medium/low heat and gently warm it up to that temp as you stir.
- Depending on how much you stirred in the previous stirring cycles, will be how long this next one lasts. Stir for 10 minutes, stirring 50-75% of the time, but begin checking your curds at 5 minutes. This is your guideline, pay attention to the curds above all else.
- This is shown on video but to try to explain; take a handful of the curds and gently squeeze them. If they just want to shoot out any crevice and are like cottage cheese or poached egg whites, they're not there yet. You want them to cling together when gently squeezed. If you try to squeeze and they dont want to cling together because they're too firm…you've gone too far, which is not a problem, it's just now a firmer cheese.
- Please see the video linked in the blog post for explanation on the importance of stirring and what happens if you dont stir long enough/stir too long. Its not bad, its just different.
- Let sit 10 minutes, then drain out your whey/curds in a cheesecloth lined colander. If you’re adding spices or herbs, dump the cheese back into your now empty pot, and mix it in well.
- Scoop your curds into the cheese cloth lined press.
- Press with light pressure for 30 minutes (this is 3-4 litres water for me). Then flip and press with medium pressure (6-8 litres water for me) overnight or 8-10 hours. If your house is very warm, err on the shorter side, if its cooler, its okay to go longer.
- Its time to brine! To make your brine, which is a 18% brine, we do this (Gouda Brine video linked in post)
- Weigh out 300grams of non iodized salt. I like to do this in an empty 4-6 litre food grade bucket such as a peanut butter or honey bucket. This way I can make, brine and store the brine in one vessel. Add in 1000grams hot tap water (or heated drinking water) and whisk well. Th salt doesnt need to be fully dissolved, just mostly. Add in 500grams cold tap/drinking water and whisk well.
- Put your pressed wheel into the brine, for a total of 20 hours, flipping about halfway.
- Take if out of the brine and put it on a plate (some use a sushi mat etc, I just put it on a dinner plate.
- Let air dry on counter for a couple days, flipping 2x a day, until the rind is kind of dry. If your house is very warm, and the rind isnt dry yet, move to the fridge for it to dry some more. If you have lots of flies, cover the cheese with one of those potluck food net cover things.
- Once its dry, vacuum seal and tuck into fridge.
- Age 3-4 weeks minimum, or longer if you want! But feel free to try it then.
- When we cut into a wheel of cheese, we cut into wedges, vacuum seal smaller wedges so we can easily just have some, and tuck the rest back in the fridge.
Nutrition
Calories: 187kcalCarbohydrates: 14gProtein: 11gFat: 10gSaturated Fat: 6gPolyunsaturated Fat: 0.3gMonounsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 39mgSodium: 117mgPotassium: 459mgSugar: 15gVitamin A: 494IUCalcium: 377mgIron: 0.1mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!