I made cheese with milk from my jersey cow. It is a pleasant color and consistency. It tastes good. It won't melt.

Am I doing something wrong or is this normal for homemade cheese?

I have used a recipe I got from this forum using vinegar. The recipe describes the result as a "soft" cheese, kind of like cottage cheese. Mine was very solid. If I let it dry for a while, I could grate it like parmesan. Too much vinegar?

I also tried a recipe using rennet. Once it was great and once it was kind of rubbery. Neither time would it melt.

Advice?

-- Mona in OK (modoc@ipa.net), May 03, 2002

Answers

Just made cheese last night for the first time. I made it with cows milk from a local farmer. I am preparing to start a commercial sheep dairy and hope to make sheeps cheese in the future. What I have learned is that some cheese melts and others don't depending on the recipe. I believe the vinegar recipe will not melt. Thew is a great web site I access all the time it is fiascofarm.com very very helpful site to the home cheesemaker. The recipe that you are talking about is on there and so are some others that will melt very nicely. Wisconsin.

-- Calvin (calvin@dwave.net), May 03, 2002.

The vinegar made cheese will not melt. Though the easiest - and a real confidence builder - that is a major drawback. There is a recipe that is just as easy, used to be in Caprine Supply, where you use citric acid (if I remember correctly). This cheese would melt. Turned out with a similar taste and feel to Ricotta. I use to use it in everything from lazagne to cheesecake.

-- Diana in FL (dvance4@juno.com), May 04, 2002.