How to make cheese

Yes, the day has finally arrived for the post about making goat cheese. I laid it out in a few logical steps with visual aids. If anything seems confusing, or you want a more in depth explanation of a certain part, leave a comment and I will respond.

We make two types of cheese at the farm:


Two types of cheese from Renee Orenstein on Vimeo.

Steps to make fresh cheese:

1. The milk is transported down to the fromagerie (the cheese building) and distributed into plastic bins with ferment powder and rennet.


What goes into the milk from Renee Orenstein on Vimeo.


Transferring the milk to the fromagerie from Renee Orenstein on Vimeo.

2. The milk has to sit for about a day so it has time to ferment and become cheese. The consistency becomes similar to fresh yogurt.

3. On day two, the water is drained from the containers as best as possible. Then we scoop the cheese into the molds with metal ladles. Depending on the orders for the day, we either make 3/4-liter, 1-liter, or 1.5-liter molds of cheese. Some of the cheese has olive tapenade or pesto in the middle.

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4. The water in the cheese drains through small holes in the plastic molds. After a few hours, it's time to flip the cheese. We turn the cheese upside down and place it back into the mold to allow more of the water to drain.

(fresh cheese with pesto and olive before flipping)

5. The next step is salting the cheese. Sprinkling some salt on top soaks up even more of the water.

6. The next day, we take the cheese out of the molds and place them on drying racks. Et voila! Fresh cheese.

Steps to make tome cheese: (sorry no videos for this one...)

1. The milk is transferred to the tome, a large metal basin (shown in video above), and is heated with a gas flame while stirring occasionally.

2. After reaching 39 degree Celsius, we scoop the cheese into a strainer and transfer it to a plastic mold lined with a cheese cloth. One day's worth of milk makes 6 molds of this cheese. It isn't as economical as making the fresh cheese, but some people prefer the taste and texture.

3. We then press the cheese into the mold using our hands to get the air bubbles out, cover it with a corner of the cheese cloth, and stack it on top of the other tome cheeses.
4. A few hours later, the cheese is flipped and placed back in the mold upside down, still in the cloth.