Wow! Sonny and I both had exciting successes that have taken a while to come about.
Sonny introduced his colt Pharaoh to pushing a cow around yesterday and today I cut open the cheddar cheese I made 2 months ago and it’s great!
OK – so Pharaoh didn’t pay any attention to the cow, really, but he’s easy going and agreeable. Together Sonny and I got a steer pair out of the heifer pairs, a heifer pair out of the steer pairs, and corraled a pair. The colt may not have done most of the work, but he was there and learning.
And then there’s success with the cheese! The cheddar texture is not as smooth as store bought, but it’s better than edible (it’s actually good) and such an improvement over my first effort which only the chickens would – or could – eat. All my cheese is milk colored because I don’t add coloring to get the traditional golden yellow color. I just add the culture (friendly bacteria that ferments the milk and changes lactose to lactic acid) , rennet to make it coagulate while it’s sweet, and salt.
I read in the Monday Morning Moos (the cheese making supplier’s newsletter) that cheese made frozen milk shouldn’t be aged more than 2 months. Mine is just 3 days short of that so I opened the wax and nervously tasted. Last time, I hadn’t followed the recipes faithfully as we were in the middle of calving and when outside duty called, I went. That meant that all my cheeses, about 10 blocks, all went bad. Disappointing but a very good lesson, and the chickens were happy. This time I chose a cold, rainy day then followed the recipe precisely.
The problem I haven’t resolved is that when I have buckets of fresh milk, I don’t have time to make cheese. I’d thought that freezing the milk was the solution, but not for aged cheese the Moosletter says. Perhaps I can get the cows to calve for 6 days, then hold off a day so I can make cheese.
I’ll have as much luck with that as Sonny’s kids have had trying to convince him not to ride this colt!
Next time Sonny asks why I want to go to all that work making cheese instead of buying it, I’ll have an answer. I’ll ask why he’d rather ride a colt than just buy a trained one…perhaps because we’re both “old school”. Very, very old school!
Sandy Snider Stahl 