Homemade steamed cheese

Homemade steamed cheese is a great delicacy and indeed, it is a trend today to look for various farm stores and manufacturers that make organic, homemade products. But you can make a real steamed cheese at home. That includes various forms of steamed cheeses such as braided cheese or knots. Making steamed cheese is easy. We tried and we are confident that you can do it too.

High quality cow’s milk and other ingredients

The basis of high-quality homemade steamed cheese is high-quality cow’s milk. Some people also use sheep milk but we used cow’s milk. About 80 litres of milk. The other raw materials include:

• thermophilic culture,
• mesophilic culture,
• rennet,
• water, salt.

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Cooking milk and preparing cheese mass

First, you need to heat the milk. We bought organic milk the day before and were surprised how a nice cream had settled on it overnight. That is good. We collected the cream and poured the remaining milk into pots and heated to 35 degrees Celsius. After that we put the thermophilic and mesophilic culture in the milk. You need very little of both cultures. A tip of knife for one pot containing 15 litres of milk. Now you have to wait for about 45 minutes. When done, we have added rennet to the cultured milk. The quantity of rennet is specified in the manual, or you may check the Internet. There are many websites that will help you. Just Google it out. Rennet is mixed with boiled water and poured into the pot with milk. Wait for 40 minutes before going to the next step.

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Cheese pudding…

The mixture will remind you of a pudding. After a while you can cut it and stir it and strain it. We used a special perforated bag to strain it. Strain it first and then squeeze out all liquid. Hung it up for about 6 hours to let the remaining liquid (whey) to drip off.

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Photo: Radek Štěpán

pH is very important

After approximately 6 hours, you need to measure the pH of the mass, which should be between 4.8 and 5.2. If so, the cheese “dough” should be refrigerated. Refrigeration stops the fermentation process. Now, you can work with the dough. We did it on the second day.

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Photo: Radek Štěpán

”Pulling and stretching”

Before you pull or stretch the dough, you need to prepare a 20% salt solution. We used 4 litres of boiled water with 1 kg of salt. Calcium chloride in a ratio of 1:1000 is also added to the water, i.e. 4 ml per 4 litres. The salt brine should have a similar pH as the cheese. To lower the pH use citric acid and if you want to increase its use baking soda. When ready, heat the water in a pot to 70 degrees Celsius. Now, place a piece of dough into a strainer and place it above the pot. Use gloves to pull the dough as the temperature is rather high. Pull the dough into cold water, where the cheese solidifies. When it does, place it in the salt bath. Leave thicker threads (for making knots) in it for about 20 minutes, and thinner threads for about 5 minutes. It all depends on how salty you like steamed cheese. Remove the threads from the salt bath and let it dry. That is it.

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Source: Vlastní zkušenosti redakce, Informace Jardy Buriana, jemuž za pomoc s článkem moc děkujeme.

Preview photo: Radek Štěpán