Single Quart Goat's Milk Mozzarella Cheese

It is a grey, dark day. The air is heavy and still, thick and soupy, suffocating… It feels like a thunderstorm is building…  It is not particularly warm today, unlike yesterday. When the sky was a beautiful shade of blue, dotted with puffy clouds and the birds were singing. We have a cardinal that likes to hang out with us in the garden. Yesterday he and I put in some peas together. A light breeze carried the smell of the mainly deciduous forest spiced with the occasional conifer around the property. As if  that little breeze were a giggle of delight emanating from Mother Nature. Today the trees of the woods hold up the burdensome over cast of the sky that lays heavily on their branches. If only it were to break  down into tiny particles we would have mist falling through the branches of our strong forest trees, all the way to the ground. The world beyond our barnyard, would be cloaked heavy by a curtain obscuring all view beyond a couple feet in front of our faces. Even the bright green of the grass would be muted when looking down towards it through the mist hanging in the air between our eyes and the ground.

Recently, we brought home a small collection of milk goats. Since then they have restructured my day. I wake up and get started much earlier, so I can milk. We have one, the soft color of honey, that seems to enjoy mocking me. She will decide arbitrarily while on the milking stand that she is done with this nonsense, and will lay down on my wrist and the Pyrex, I am milking her into. Grabbing up high with my thumb and forefinger before following under them with first my middle then ring fingers in a squeezing and wringing motion. All while I aim the teat towards the mouth of the Pyrex, so I can collect the milk rather than have it land wastefully in some unwanted place or worst of all leak down my hand and into my sleeve. We have given Byng, some sweet feed so at first she is fine as I wring the milk out of her. Until she would rather do something else. At which point she goes down on her front knees while continuing to eat her sweet feed, she drops 80 lbs down onto my wrist and milking hand that are still in the act of shooting milk from her teat into the Pyrex. It bloody hurts. It is all I can do with my other hand to save the Pyrex, before she is laying in it.

After Byng, I milk Haley. She too is honey color but has lovely white markings on her side. Her issues are two fold. At first she declines to release milk. I sit milking for a while before anything comes out of her. When it finally does, it is scant in amount for a bit. By this time my hands are cramping as I continue on. Gradually she allows me to take more and more with every squeeze. Then I go through it again with the other teat… Once my hand is screaming from the cramps and the second teat is emptied and both have become wiggly and soft, she pulls her second act. An act I have begun figuring out how to get ahead of in the last several days since she has joined our homestead. She tries to kick over the Pyrex, spilling all that beautiful milk obtained through an act of torture all over the milking stand. The first time she did it I wasn’t expecting it. I damn nearly began to cry.

Lastly we have Cinnamon who is a darker honey color. What’s her deal? Being perfect and an angel actually. She comes right out, gets on the milking stand spreads her legs a bit, stands calmly, and puts up with all my teat wringing however slow I may be at it as a beginner. She accepts it all with the patience and grace of a saint. She does nothing untoward. She is perfect in every way. Doesn’t try to kick over the Pyrex, doesn’t try to lay down in it, doesn’t make an effort to be withholding with her milk. Just munches away on her sweet feed and lets me do what I need to do so she can be comfortable rather than explosive due to the over abundance of milk trapped in her teat. This little goat is my favorite. I absolutely adore her. I love the other two too. But they just aren’t like Cinnamon, as they make this process difficult.

I am allergic, to the protein in cow dairy. Add to that the new dangers of consuming store purchased milk these days. Now that Trump has ended the testing of milk for quality, that used to keep consumers safe.  It seemed prudent to me, not to take that kind of risk with our health, by continuing to buy dairy products at stores. There is no longer any safety standard, as the regulatory body doing the tests that ensure the safety of milk for consumers have been fired. So we got the girls, and I milk them twice a day. We get about a quart or so each time. I have been saving it raw after filtering it, for use in the gardens, or in soap or some other self care topical product. We pasteurize it for our own consumption.

Pasteurization, is when you heat the milk in a double boiler to 161 Fahrenheit on the stove and hold it there without boiling it for at least 15 seconds. Then, you cool it immediately and as quickly as possible to about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, before straining it into a sanitized jar and closing the lid. From there it goes to either the freezer or fridge. Pasteurization is a very important step in ensuring the safety of milk for human consumption. I realize there is a raw milk fad right now, and many are very into it. Raw milk, depending on where you get it and what the farmer’s healthcare practices are for his animals, can be totally fine. However, we lack a medical history on these goats, no idea when they last saw a vet. Add to that pasteurization makes it safer, and thanx we will pasteurize. otherwise what is the point if part of the point was to avoid the lack of a safety standard now in milk on store shelves? Drinking raw milk, while it can be fine, is playing a dangerous game. One I am not inclined to play as a whole farm depends on me being healthy enough to show up for work every day. I can’t do that if I am too ill.

Today, we are using a quart of our pasteurized milk obtained during evening milking, to make Mozzarella Cheese. We are in a  bit of a hurry to get this project underway. We want to make sure our milk tastes as fresh as possible without that nasty tang people associate with goat milk. Fresh goat milk tastes completely different from what you buy on store shelves that has been sitting a while. Especially when it comes from Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goats, since they were created as a breed  to closely mimic the flavor of cow milk. The two milks are nearly indistinguishable from one another for about a day following milking. Then the goaty flavor begins to emerge and it is time to mix it into a solution at a ratio of 50% milk to 50% water for the gardens. It can be really good for the vegetables when done once a month. Sometimes I also give the dog a bit. She loves it. I have also heard chickens too enjoy goat milk as a treat. Or again this slightly aged still good milk can also be used in self care such as soap.

To make Mozzarella, you will need several things:
Microwave
Slotted Spoon
3 Pots
Timer optional
Rubber Gloves
Microwavable bowl
Knife

Ingredients:
1 quart Goat Milk
¼ tablet rennet
1 ½ teaspoons Citric Acid
¼ teaspoon pink salt

Directions:
Start by dissolving ¼ tablet of Rennet into ¼ cup of cooled boiled water. (we will only use ¼ of this solution.)
Separately mix 1 ½ teaspoons into ¼ cooled boiled water. (We will only use a quarter of this solution)
Pour milk into pot. Drizzle ¼ of citric acid solution into the milk. Gently and slowly stir citric acid into the milk in an up and down motion. Becareful not to over stir.
Heat milk to 90F stir gently and occasionally to prevent scorching.
At 90F remove from heat, gently stir ¼ of the rennet solution into the milk with a slow up and down motion for 2 to 3 seconds. Becareful not to over stir.
Put lid on pot allow to sit 20 minutes undisturbed.
At this point curds and whey have separated.
Curds should look solid whey will be yellowish green liquid.
Cut curds with long sharp knife into one inch cubes.
Place pot back onto the heat. Heat to 105F whilst gently moving the curds with your spoon
If curds don’t look like solid mass but like lots of small lumps keep going it should work out.
With slotted spoon, ladle curds into microwavable bowl. Gently hold back the curds, pour off the whey.
Microwave on high for 1 minute.
Drain off any excess whey and with your rubber gloves on fold and knead the hot cheese, like kneading bread but very gently. Continue kneading for about a minute. Remove as much whey as you can.
Microwave 30 seconds. Add salt and gently fold and knead again for a few minutes. The longer you knead the firmer the cheese will be.
Microwave for a further 30 seconds. Then continue to stretch and fold hot cheese. Add any herbs you may want to use at this stage. Cheese should stretch easily. If it doesn’t microwave again for 30 seconds. It will only stretch when too hot to touch with bare hands.
Once cheese is smooth, elastic, and shiny, shape it into a large ball, lots of little balls, or any way you choose.
Mozarella CAN be eaten immediately, but for best results place cheese in bowl of ice water for 30 minutes to bring the temperature down.
Cover and store in the fridge. Mozzarella will last about 5 days. DO NOT COVER IN WATER!!!

And that, is how you make your own fresh Mozzarella, from Goat Milk. I am loving these goats. They are opening a whole new world of self sufficiency here on this homestead. They are also protecting our health from a deliberate act that sabotages the health of the American people. It is also fabulous to now have goat milking as another dying art form in my tool belt, along with knitting, spinning, baking, gardening, bee keeping, chicken care, foraging… and a number of others. Goats for milk have always been part of the dream. Even with the headaches of Byng, laying on my arm and The Pyrex, and Haley, kicking over the Pyrex, like Jesus, turning over the tables of the money lenders at the temple, to torture me. (How do you like that?! My Grandma, would be so proud! look at me, making a Biblical Christian reference… Not something I am prone to do. Being raised in a Buddhist hippy commune, my familiarity with the Bible is quite limited.)  I am enjoying these goats immensely. They are cute, sweet and so naughty. One of the best parts of my day, is when I am in the kitchen and I can look out the window at the hill in back, and see them all out there frolicking and bouncing around wagging their their tails. Their playful joy is infectious, and allowing myself to be infected by it helps me get through my day.

Thank you for reading
Enjoy the Mozzarella anywhere and any way you would usually use Mozzarella.
Amanda Of Wildflower Farm