Feta

Homemade feta cheese is a delicious and healthy product that you can easily make yourself.

Below is a step-by-step process for making feta cheese from goat or cow’s milk.

Pasteurizing the Milk

First, you need to pasteurize the milk.

Heat the milk (10 liters) to 68°C and maintain the temperature for 10 minutes.

Then cool it down to 33°C by placing the pot in cold water in a bath.

Adding Cultures and Rennet

When the milk cools to 33°C, add mesophilic cultures, evenly distribute them on the surface, and leave for 30 minutes.

Then add a solution of calcium chloride (1 g per 10 liters of milk, dissolved in 30 ml of water) and mix thoroughly.

Next, add rennet (0.4 g per 10 liters of milk, dissolved in 30 ml of water), mix thoroughly again, and let the milk ripen.

Forming the Curd

Set a timer and start stirring well.

After stirring, stop the milk movement (place what you stirred with and wait) and put a lid on the water.

Turn off the heat.

When the lid stops floating in the milk, check how much time has passed.

The optimal time is 10-12 minutes.

If more time has passed, increase the amount of rennet proportionally next time to reduce the time to 10-12 minutes.

Multiply the number of minutes obtained by 3. And wait for the resulting number of minutes.

Cutting the Curd

After the specified time, cut the curd first horizontally, then vertically at intervals of 1.5 cm.

After 5-7 minutes, make similar cuts horizontally.

Then gently but actively stir the mass to break the curds for 1-1.5 hours. Stir every 10 minutes.

Forming and Pressing the Cheese

Transfer the mass to cheese molds, perform turns after 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour (now, if desired, you can place a weight of 300-500 g), 2 hours, 8 hours.

Thoroughly wash your hands before each turn.

Salting the Cheese

Salt the cheese in a proportion of 2% of its final weight, rubbing the salt evenly.

Leave at room temperature for 2 hours.

Aging the Cheese

Then you can store the cheese in a vacuum sealer or place it in a brine with a 8% salt concentration, adding 0.3 g of calcium chloride per liter of water and a few granules of citric acid.

The cheese should age for 20 days in the refrigerator.

After aging, the cheese can be cut into cubes and stored in olive oil.

Brining the Cheese

To prepare the brine, boil 5 liters of water and add 3 kg of salt, allowing the water to cool.

Brine the cheese considering its consistency and weight. For every 100 g:

• for a delicate cheese – 50 minutes;
• for a dense one – 60 minutes.

Brine at a water temperature of 10-12°C

Drying the Cheese

After brining, place the cheese to dry for several hours.

Then cut it into cubes and also place it to dry in the refrigerator for 24 hours (if placing in a 10% salt solution, then for 48 hours).

Turn occasionally.

Then place in refined olive oil (can be with spices, but not finely ground) for aging or in a 10% salt solution.

Aging time: 14-30 days.