Help me with my cottage cheese experiment

[justmandy]

So dd and I tried to make cottage cheese (reading too much Little House these days, lol) I'm not sure if I ruined the whole thing, or what here's what happened.

We mixed milk and buttermilk and set in the pantry, my instructions said 1-2 days. After one day, it seemed solid and did not smell sour, I wasn't sure so I left in another day.

On day 2, it seemed just as solid but smelled sour, not bad sour, like sour cream.

Then I went to put it in the cheese cloth to drain the whey and I guess I didn't have enough layers because it all went right through. I've tried a few more times with different thickneses of cheese cloth but I guess I've strained it and it all pours through the cloth.

Here's my questions:
Will it set back up?
Can I leave it out safely for another day?
Is there anything else I can do with it?
Should I just start over?
Should I have drained it on the first day?
How many layers of cheese cloth should I use?

Wow that's a lot of questions! Thansk so much for reading!

[AJP]

Are you using pasteurized milk? Storebought buttermilk? Is it live culture? (If not, you won't get anywhere.) I personally would not be comfortable leaving pasteurized milk at room temp to culture or clabber for more than a few hours. Since it doesn't have any of its own native (friendly) organisms left after pasteurization, if the organisms in the item you use to inoculate it (in this case, buttermilk) don't take over quickly enough then it leaves the door open for any organisms that are not friendly or not pleasant tasting in the milk to proliferate (pasteurized milk still has bacteria in it, just not the beneficial ones native to clean, raw milk - instead it has the ones it encounters on all the processing equipment post-pasteurization).

When we make cottage cheese from raw milk, we use a mesophilic cheese starter (one that grows at room temp), let it culture undisturbed for 24 hours or until it forms a soft but distinct curd, then work it gently to break up the curds, which stimulates the release of more whey and we end up with lots of small curds swimming in a pot full of whey. Then we scoop it into a bear-nose strainer with very small holes to drain out the whey, and salt the curd to taste. A little bit of whey or cream can be added back in if a dry curd is not desired.

If you didn't get a distinct curd that separates easily from the whey, then straining it is unlikely to result in anything like cottage cheese. A very soft clabber (like yogurt) can be strained to make a spreadable cheese, if the strainer is fine enough, but it won't make cottage cheese.

Mostly the stuff sold at grocery stores as "cheese cloth" isn't really useful for cheese making, it's not fine enough, sometimes it can work if you use 4 or more layers.

[justmandy]

Yes, I'm using pasturised milk and store bought live culture buttermilk. I'm using the instructions from the LLL cookbook, Whole Foods For The Whole Family. It says I can use any milk that isn't ultra pasturised. Hmm. I'll have to decide where I stand on the bacteria issue since I am adding cultures back in.

I have powdered probiotics, could I add that? I know it would be better to just use raw milk, I'm just trying to use what I have on hand.

What about the cheese cloth from fabric stores? Or do I need to order some?

Thanks!

[AJP]

I think powdered probiotics are unlikely to work well as a cheese culture. You can order powdered or liquid cultures from quite a few places online, if you want something other than live-culture storebought items to use as a starter.

I don't know about cheese cloth from a fabric store. We got ours from cheese making supply places. We actually use a bear nose strainer with small holes to drain cottage cheese.

[Magelet]

I like muslin from the fabric store. that works nice for me.

[JElaineB]

Since your inspiration comes from Little House, if you want to try another method I did post the recipe from The Little House Cookbook for cottage cheese in this thread: http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=581575

[justmandy]

I didn't know there was such a book! I'm so excited! Thanks for the thread. I'm planning on giving it another go today.

Thanks, everyone, for your tips.

[JElaineB]

Originally Posted by justmandy

I didn't know there was such a book! I'm so excited! Thanks for the thread. I'm planning on giving it another go today.

Thanks, everyone, for your tips.

You can get it on Amazon for less than $10.

http://www.amazon.com/Little-House-C...8&sr=8-1-spell

It's a great book.