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.

More about goats.

Here are some entertaining tidbits about life on the farm.

1. We have fleas. Enough said.

2. Today a goat got stuck in the fence. She thought she was skinny enough to get through, but her hips were too wide and she was too stupid to go back the way she came. We ended up having to saw her in half and make her into sausage. I'm kidding. We're vegetarians.

3. Tammy likes to poke the goats in the udders to get them to move.

4. On Thursday, we lost all of the milk from the morning (but it was NOT our fault). Someone hooked the hoses up wrong and instead of going into the tank, the milk went directly onto the floor of the fromagerie and down the drain. Bye bye cheese.

5. Instead of going into the barn, a goat climbed up onto the roof and we had to chase it off.

6. I have found all types of creatures in our room, which I have flung outside using the dustpan. They include: a snake, a giant beetle, a bee that was surprisingly just napping in our bathroom sink, a slug, and a snail that climbed into my shoe overnight. I have also probably killed 75 fleas.

7. The baby goats like to follow Tammy and me rather than the rest of the herd, which can pose a problem when we are bringing them to graze in the fields. There have been numerous times when we had to just bring a few of the naughty ones back to the barn for the night because they wouldn's stop following us. We give them their baby formula and don't headbutt them like the rest of the goats, so they like us way better. I'm sure if we stayed here a few more weeks, we would be awakened by the baaaah's of a baby goat in our bed.

8. Today, I swore a goat said my name.





Puppy Alert!

The man who lives next door trains collies to herd sheep, and today after work we went to watch. It was like puppy school, except there was a herd of sheep and all of the dogs were exceptionally smart. The lessons were more for the humans, and not so much for the dog. Here are some photos of the collies and some adorable puppies.