Easy Cheese Curd Making

Since it came up tonight, here’s my tried-and-true 8h cheese curd recipe. If you’re adept at making curds, you might remember the 12-16h wait while the curds are pressed. That’s something we found more or less unacceptable, since we had to set up the curds while staff was still in the kitchen and had to have them done before the dinner prep the next day.

So here it is:

• Raw Milk. No worries, we’ll sterilize and clean and cook and heat the living crap out of our setup, which will make it close to impossible for the milk to carry any nasty bugs.
• 1/2 cup of white vinegar per gallon of raw milk. I usually make a gallon a time, two on weekends.
• Cheesecloth
• A aluminum wrapped brick (two, three, just for good measure. Keep them in your pantry, they’re heck-a-good for all kind of things. We wrap them in aluminum to be able to sterilize them quickly in the oven.)
• Salt, kosher, lots of it.

1. Pour the milk into a large saucepan. Heat at medium to 194/196 degrees F.
2. Stir with a wooden (not metallic) spoon, watch as a skin forms.
3. Remove from heat and skim off skin.
4. Let cool to below 100 degrees F, then add vinegar.
5. Stir, stir, stir. Slowly, deliberately, while the milk separates into curds and whey.
6. Line a colander with cheesecloth, pour a generous amount of salt onto the cheesecloth – about 1/2 inch. Pour whey/curds into it.
7. Let the whey drip through the colander/salt and either discard or hold to use.
8. Salt the remaining curds, very slightly.
9. Fold the cheesecloth over the curds, and twist shut, squeezing out whatever whey remains.
10. Flatten the cheesecloth satchel, place back into colander, place plate or something else large on top, weigh down with brick.
11. Move into walk-in or something equally cool – ensure the curds will reach ~45 degrees F within 2 hours.
12. Keep weighed down for 6 hours, done.

The trick is to cool the curds to 45 quickly and maintain the salt layer, which will – through osmosis and the magic of temperature and pressure equation in saline solutions – remove internal moisture quicker. Scrub off the outer salt layer before cutting the curd, it also helps to wash the curds in a little milk (use whole pasteurized).

Oh, and consider investing into mesophilic starter powder – it makes things even easier :).