Feta

This is a semi-hard cheese that can be made with ingredients from our Hard Cheese Kit, Soft Cheese Kit, Feta Kit and milk. This is a beautifully textured Feta, that does not require ageing for any considerable length of time before eating, and is very easy to make.

Homemade Feta Cheese

Ingredients:

  • 4 litres of full cream milk
  • 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon calcium chloride diluted in 1/4 cup of non-chlorinated water.
    The addition of Calcium Chloride generally improves the rennet coagulation properties of your milk and this is particularly true when using pasteurised milk from the grocery store.
  • 1 dose Mesophilic Hard Curd Starter Culture.
  • 1/4 teaspoon liquid rennet or 1/4 of a rennet tablet diluted or dissolved in 1/2 cup of non-chlorinated water.
  • 2 tablespoons of cheese salt.

Directions:

  • Mix your Calcium Chloride solution into your 4 litres of milk.
  • Slowly heat milk, using indirect heat, to 30° C

 

Double Boiler
  
Two stainless steel 'stock pots' with water in the large pot and milk in the small pot makes an effective 'water jacket', heating your milk indirectly.

 

  • Add starter culture and stir well. Leave to incubate for 1 hour, maintaining the temperature at 30° C.
  • Add rennet solution and stir in gently using an up and down motion for one minute to ensure that the rennet is evenly distributed. Allow to rest undisturbed for one hour, maintaining the temperature at 30° C.
  • Check for a clean break. If the curd is not firm enough, leave for another 5 minutes and check again. Patience is the key here, wait for a clean break, and do not despair if this takes a while. If you do not get a clean break after several hours, do not throw your mixture out, but keep it warm overnight perhaps, and then drain it through a tight weave cheesecloth. Your end result might be a soft cheese, instead of feta, but it still is a cheese.
  • Once the curd is firm enough and gives a clean break, cut the curd into 1.5-centimetre cubes. Let rest for 10 minutes.
  • Gently stir the curds for 20 minutes, being careful not to break them down.
  • Gently pour the curds into a colander, lined with your cloth, to drain off the whey. Tie the corners of the cloth together to form a bag and hang to drain for 5 hours. The curds will knit together into a solid mass.
  • Untie the bag and cut the curds into 2.5-centimetre cubes.
  • Sprinkle with cubes with the salt to taste and store in the refrigerator and allow to age for 3-4 days before eating. 

You can also store your finished cheese in brine, instead of dry salting. Prepare a light brine solution using 200 grams of Cheese Salt and two litres of non-chlorinated water.   ​

For a different flavour try adding 1/10 teaspoon of lipase dissolved in 1/4 cup of un-chlorinated water at the same time you add the starter culture. Allow the Lipase to set in the water for 20 minutes before using. If using lipase, you will need to increase the amount of rennet used to achieve a good clean break.

Recipe © 2008 Valerie Pearson

Video - Making Feta is Easy.

 

You can make feta with the following cheese kits:

9 Products Found