Raw Milk Farm Cheese

We get raw milk every week from a wonderful little Amish farm where we own a cow share, and by the week’s end we sometimes have milk left over. So I started looking for some easy ways to use it up, and I ended up with this great recipe for making a simple farm cheese. The flavor is similar to a mozzarella cheese and the kids love it! I was completely surprised by how easy this was to make.

Ingredients/Materials

• ½ Gallon of Room Temperature Cream from Raw Milk *You can use an entire gallon of milk if you don’t want to separate the cream and it will work just as well.
• ¼ c. Apple Cider Vinegar *More or less depending on the curds.
• 1 t. Real Salt (I buy my Real Salt in bulk here, you can buy a shaker here, or a refill pouch here.)
• Cheese Cloth (I used a bird’s eye cloth diaper and it worked great.)
• Colander
• Cooking Pan

Directions

1. Bring the cream to a boil on medium heat stirring very often.
2. Once it boils, turn the heat down low and slowly add the vinegar until you see the curds start to separate from the whey. *You can continue to add more vinegar until it stops curding.
3. Strain into a colander lined with the cloth. *You can put a bowl under the colander to save the whey to soak grains or use to boil stock.
4. Salt to taste and lightly mix.
5. Pick up the four corners and twist out as much of the whey as you can. (You may want to let it cool a bit.)
6. Tie up the four corners and let it hang for an hour or two.
7. Cut and serve!

I modified this recipe from The Nourished Kitchen and WikiHow.

*If this recipe has inspired you to try some more challenging and complex cheese recipes, I recommend checking out Cultures for Health and you will enter into an amazing world of cheese making possibilities.