How To Make Feta Cheese
How much do you love cheese? Or cheese over salad? Do you know that you can make your own feta cheese, which you could use in baking square cakes without rinds or toppings for your salad and pasta? Feta is a white cheese with small holes. It tastes tangy and salty, ranging from mild to sharp. It has maximum moisture of 56% and a minimum content of 43% fat.
Feta is a cheese from Greece, which was formerly made using sheep's milk, which is sometimes mixed with goat's milk. Although as the making of feta cheese has evolved, most manufacturers are now making feta cheese out of cow's milk. To make feta cheese, you have to follow the instructions below.
1. Buy all ingredients and prepare the needed utensils. In making feta cheese, you will need to prepare fresh cow’s or goat’s milk - one gallon, ? rennet lozenge or tablet, 1 tablespoon plain yogurt, salt 1? cups, and cooking thermometer. Also, prepare a shallow rectangular container for the feta curds, colander, long knife, muslin or cheesecloth, and an airtight container.
2. Prepare the basic mixture. In a huge pan, pour the milk and heat it up to 85 degrees. Put and whisk the yogurt into the milk until it is completely integrated. And then take out the concoction from the heat and let it set for 2 hours. Time is essential in making feta cheese so make sure you follow the number of hours required in this instruction
3. Make the curd. With 3-4 tablespoon of cool water, liquefy the rennet lozenge and whip it into the milk. Continue stirring the mixture for 6 minutes and then let the concoction set for 1-2 hours or until the curds are dense enough to split cleanly when cut with a knife. Dice the curds and let the cubes settle for ten minutes. Make sure you use a long knife in cutting the curds to make a clean cut and softly stir the curds. If there are any larger dice, cut them so the size is uniform. Allow the curds to sit for 30 minutes while stirring them occasionally.
4. Drain the whey from feta curds. From the feta curds, sap the whey by pouring the concoction into a strainer lined with cheesecloth or muslin. Fasten the corners of the cheesecloth into a loop and allow the curds to continue draining for 5 hours or more.
5. Refrigerate the feta curds. In a low rectangular container, put the feta curds, firmly fitting it to the lid so that the thickness will just be about an inch. Cover and put the container with feta curds in the refrigerator for 90 minutes and then take the feta curds out to cut it into square cubes.
6. Make brine solution. In a quart of warm water, dissolve 1? cups of salt and cool it in the refrigerator. Immerse the feta cubes in the cold brine for 6-30 days. In this way, feta will become crumbly. The longer you age the feta curds, the more crumbly it becomes. So it will be good if you let it age for 30 days.
After 30 days, take out the feta curds from the brine solution and touch it dry using paper towels. You now have a homemade feta cheese. Using an sealed container, refrigerate your feta cheese. Other people are reading here.