Originally Manchego is made with sheep’s milk – specifically Manchego sheep from the La Mancha region of Spain. I am making it here with our own Jersey cow’s milk. I have been making a lot of cheese lately and needed something different and flavorful to try.
The biggest difference so far between this and other cheeses I have been making recently is the use of both mesophilic and thermophilic cultures. This is actually the first cheese I have tried using a Thermophilic culture – which is used more in Italian type cheeses like Romano and Parmesan. I would love to make more Italian type cheeses but I need a way to press it at nearly 100lbs – that is twice the pressure that my current press can handle. I love to use Dairy Connection for my cultures. They have really great customer service and are always helpful in talking me through what I need and problems I am having.
The other big difference in this cheese and others I’ve been making is the size of the curds. After cutting they are stirred with a whisk to break them into rice size pieces. I started this cheese with 3 gallons of milk.
Here are what seem like tiny curds compared to what I’m used to.
Pouring off the whey.
The curds settled in the bottom of the pot.
The press ready and waiting with a pan underneath to catch the whey.
The press loaded with the curds. I love plyban cheesecloth – it is what I am using in the press.
It is pressed at 15lbs of pressure for 45 minutes while turning it over every 15 minutes.
Here it is after 15, 30 and 45 minutes. After this, it gets pressed for 6 hours at 30lbs of pressure and then brined for another 6 hours in a saturated brine. In the morning I should have a delicious 2 1/2lb block of cheese!
When we got our hogs butchered last fall we decided to keep a fresh side to try our hand at curing our own. Well, with the upcoming butchering date for our chickens coming up and 2 more hogs, 1/2 a beef, and a lamb already off to slaughter and needing to be picked up next week, I decided that it was about time I got around to it. I needed to make some room for all the fresh stuff rolling in so I guess now is as good a time as any.
It’s a nice looking fresh side. Not too much fat and I’m excited to get started.
Those pans I got at the restaurant auction are coming in really handy.
I did some research, read some other people’s blogs and decided to jump in. I got a lot of inspiration from all the blogs I read and adapted my “cure” from several that I had seen. I’m using a mixture of real salt, coarsely ground peppercorns, brown sugar, meat curing salt, and real maple syrup. Even the cure smelled delightful.
I rubbed this all into the meat and now it will just have to sit for about a week. I will rub it all over every day and then it will be time for the smoking.
Here is it all rubbed down with the cure:
I’ll update it’s progress as the week goes on so check back!
We moved the cows out to pasture this week and have them off of hay now. It is wonderful to see them in the spring when they get their first run of a new paddock of fresh green grass – jumping a kicking and excited. The children call it “rodeo-ing’. The milk is wonderfully yellow and creamy once again. It is always pretty creamy but the wonderful yellow color that comes from fresh green grass can’t be beat.
Milk production has almost doubled since Monday as well. The girls are all going into long lactations so the boost in production is an especially wonderful perk. We don’t have anyone scheduled to calve until the 27th of July. Not an ideal time for southern Missouri as it will be quite hot by that time but we are just happy that everyone seems to have settled and we will have a calving season once again and it will be here before we know it.
We brought the last pound of butter out of the freezer from last grazing season also so our timing and butter storage ended up being perfect. At one point I had over 60lbs of beautifully yellow grass fed butter in the freezer.
Look for updates more regularly throughout the season. We are once again attending the Farmer’s Market in Mountain Home, Arkansas and will be bringing our naturally raised pork and pastured poultry beginning the end of May. It’s better to order chickens ahead of time so if you may be interested please contact us and we can send you out an order form. I’ve also been baking my sourdough bread and sourdough English muffins for the market.
Thanks for stopping by….
It’s a busy time of year here.
Preparing the garden for spring is in full swing. Our brother-in-law got a plow and harrow for his tractor and he was kind enough to plow our garden area for us. To prepare for that, we needed to dig up our strawberries that we had planted 2 years ago. They needed to be thinned and spread out anyway and consolidated. We split them up the fall before last into two beds but they were spread apart and I wanted to get them all in one place. It seemed easiest just to dig them up temporarily and transplant them into where there new permanent home will be. Much to my surprise I ended up digging over 1000 strawberry plants! Well, I don’t need to replant anywhere near that many. I have some listed on craigslist but if you are interested in some strawberry starts email me.
Also, the greenhouse is slowly filling with seedlings and we are expecting baby piglets starting about the first of April. We are also expecting our young LGD, Poppy, to have puppies on the first of April. Our spring chicks will start arriving on the 24th of March and then our broiler raising season will be in full swing.
Happy Spring Everyone!
Well, we are very excited at the prospect that our pastured poultry will be GMO free this year! We have been searching high and low for an feed source closer to home and have finally found one.
We are looking at having 2 batches of chickens this spring and one for the fall. If you would be interested in some delicious GMO free pastured poultry be sure to contact us!
Just after Christmas we acquired a new Jersey girl. We got her on a trade for our % mini-jersey heifer we had for sale. She is 2 years old and calved in September of 2010. She is also registered with the AJCA.
She has taken nicely to the milking routine and is really a sweetheart. She was bred to Shephard Hill Leo on the 8th of January so she should be calving in mid October.
Her milk is delicious and the cream gets very thick!
Tags: Raw Milk
We brought Heart’s bull calf home today. He was born February 27th of last year. He was sired by Glen Forrest Avery Action We had 2 Action bull calves born here this year and the other recently went to become a herd sire at another farm here in southwest MO.
I don’t think he’ll be ready to breed the girls quite yet as they are still much bigger than him but they should all be bred now anyway.
I am in love with his color and can’t wait to get some of his calves on the ground. His face and brisket aren’t black but a very dark shade of grey. His torso is a mousy brown with silver tips and his hind end is very light gray/silvery. He’s quite the looker and starting to look quite “bully”.
Tags: Raw Milk
(Greene County, MO) — It’s a big win for farmers and people who prefer to buy locally-grown food.
A husband and wife who run a farm in Conway have been acquitted on charges of illegally selling raw milk inside Springfield city limits.
The Bechards sell milk that’s regularly tested but not pasteurized.
It’s not against the law, but Missouri requires milk sold at distribution points like grocery stores and farmers markets to be pasteurized.
Is a farmer’s car a distribution point? That’s where the legal battle boiled.
Read the rest of the story here.
Tags: Missouri Raw Milk, Raw Milk
By Stanley A. Fishman, Author of Tender Grassfed Meat
There are many reasons to oppose S510, the so-called “Food Safety” bill that will come up in the Senate after the election.
It will do nothing to improve actual food safety, relying almost totally on burdensome paperwork.
It will drive small farmers out of business, because they do not have the resources to comply with the crushing burden of meaningless paperwork that will be required.
The paperwork will have to be done to the satisfaction of regulatory agencies that are heavily influenced by the large agricultural companies, who will be able to use the government to destroy their smaller competition. This has happened before, when the adoption of paperwork-heavy HAACP standards led to the closing of most of the small meat processing plants in the nation. Of course, their business was taken by the giants, and most American meat is packed at huge plants owned by a handful of large companies. And there are more meat contamination outbreaks than ever before.
Read the rest here.
Tags: Grassfed, Missouri Raw Milk, Raw Milk
by Mark McAfee, Owner Organic Pastures Dairy Company
Farmers and Consumers need to react strongly and swiftly to combat unfair attacks on their food by regulators. To attract media interest, you must create a loud and colorful protest, armed with the facts.
Fresno-Raw-Milk-Protest-Rally
Raw Milk Rally in Fresno, California
When OPDC was shut down for six days in 2006 our consumers went radical. They started doing things like standing with me, their farmer, with protest signs telling their stories of healing. I threatened national media interviews to expose the details that did not match the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) story of six critically sick kids.
Read the rest here. http://hartkeisonline.com/food-politics/how-to-respond-to-a-farm-raid/
Tags: Grassfed, Missouri Raw Milk, Raw Milk
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