August 28, 2009

Making cottage cheese from clabber.
In this photo, the curds are being cooked with hot water added to the pot. We didn't skim the cream so it's floating on top of the water.

Here are the partially cooked curds draining. After this we added more hot water, stirred briefly, and then added lots of cold water while stirring and breaking up the curd to stop it cooking.

In this photo, the cooked and cooled curds are draining. They've been salted and will go in the fridge in 30 minutes.

This is by far the simplest cheese we've made. The room temperature cottage cheese that we've made is OK but it's a real pain to wash that fine cheesecloth after draining.

We have clabber!

It's firmer than yogurt and slightly more sour. The whey has separated as you can see in the photo. The process is easy. Put fresh milk in a jar and set it out at room temperature covered with a towel. This jar of Sugar's milk took 13 days to clabber.

For all the raw milk naysayers out there: I challenge you to take your favorite pasteurized milk, set it out at room temperature and drink/eat it 13 days later.

August 25, 2009

I got sidetracked this past weekend by a broken drain from the kitchen sink that was pouring out of the crawlspace into the cellar and producing wetness and unpleasant smells. Since we bought the house, it has been a mystery to me where the kitchen drain went to. Every other drain in the house goes directly into the sewer pipe in the cellar which goes out to the septic tank. The kitchen drain went out of the sink and straight down into the ground under the crawlspace. I had to cut the pipe and run a new line across the crawlspace into the main cellar. It was a pretty quick and easy job once I had a plan in place and bought the material. Very little farm work got done, though. I had a farmer's cheese started but with this distraction it ended up as cottage cheese. Not a total loss.

I'll be calling the butcher this week to set up an appointment for lambs for the end of September. I talked to the owner's son last week and he said they've recently slowed down a bit which was good because he was bringing in animals faster than his mom and dad could get the meat cut and wrapped.

Hopefully, we'll get a new driveway put in this week. This is the first step to converting our old greenhouse into a garage. Step two is renting a dumpster to clean it out and remove the old plastic, etc. Then we have to get the hole in for the overhead door and pour concrete, new siding, doors, etc. We hope to have it completed before winter weather comes.

After years of wanting one, we finally decided to buy a front loader for our tractor. I can't wait to get it. It will be a huge time saver and Sugar's stall can finally be dug out and a good base put down so it stays drier.

August 20, 2009

We got some rain last night which was very welcome. Our garden is about to burst. The late corn is ready and there's probably 30 quarts to freeze in addition to the 20 that the early corn yielded. The late cabbage is also ready. Most of it will go into sauerkraut. Tomatoes are just starting to come on after getting a late start due to the cool weather in early summer. The winter squash seems to be developing well from what I can see. It's a jungle in there because the squash in interplanted with the corn. As soon as the corn is harvested I'll cut the stalks and feed to the cows and sheep.

Sugar continues to milk well, giving us what amounts to about 1% cream unfortunately. The calves are growing like crazy, though. I had an idea last night that maybe her failure to gain weight has to do with internal parasites. I have the equipment to do fecal tests for worms in sheep. There's no reason why that won't work for cows except I don't have the nifty chart identifying the cow parasites. I'm not sure that matters, though. Worm eggs will still look like worm eggs. I plan on doing the test this weekend and treating her if she needs it.

I ran into my butcher yesterday at one of our local gun shops and remembered that I need to call them for a September appointment to take in the lambs. I'd really like to sell at least one more and two would be better. The price is $3.25 per pound of carcass weight plus the butchering and slaughtering fees which are about $50-$60 for a 50# lamb carcass. The total for 50 pounds would be about $220 and the total yield would probably be around 40 pounds after cutting and packaging. Email joe[at]realfoodfreedom[dot]com if you're interested.

August 17, 2009

The stinging insects are vicious this year. My daughter "found" a nest of yellow jackets in the ground in our front yard and was stung five times on one foot. Thank God she's not allergic. It was just painful. I just came in from spraying the nest with Raid. Also, our honeybees in the maple tree out front recently split and the swarm decided to take up residence between our chimney and house. It kills me to spray honeybees but they are getting inside and all of us have been stung at least once. The bees aren't aggressive but it's hard not to step on them when they get in the carpet. I've sprayed seven cans of bug killer in the crack where they've taken up residence and they're still hanging in. We might have to get an exterminator in. The man who's going to be grinding out the old mortar and tuck-pointing the chimney won't want to deal with bees. We also have a hornet's nest in one of our barns that I'm going to have to deal with sooner rather than later.

We were one of the 30% who got rain today and it was welcome. I really need to close off one part of the pasture to stockpile some grazing for the fall. We're supplementing Sugar with alfalfa hay to try to put some weight on her. She is very thin and we can't seem to get her to gain weight. I understand that some dairy cows are naturally thin and put all fat into their milk rather than on their backs, so we're just trying to keep her healthy. We'll wean the calves after our vacation in October and hopefully that will help. I hope she can hang in there for a twenty month lactation. She's currently eating 12# of organic corn and oats per day along with good minerals, salt, dried kelp and all the pasture and alfalfa hay she can eat.

The lambs have about 5 weeks before slaughter and seem to be growing OK. I should probably give them some of the alfalfa hay since the pasture isn't great. They're still nursing, too.

I've got a ton of projects that I want to complete before cold weather comes but we're busy at work and are putting in some overtime. We'll probably hire someone to convert our old greenhouse into a garage and put a new roof on the shed rather than do it ourselves.

The garden is doing well and we've frozen 20 quarts of corn so far with only the early corn having been harvested. The tomatoes are slowly beginning to ripen and we've got more beans to freeze as well. I've made six quarts of sauerkraut and the late cabbage is about ready so that will make another 8 probably. We've got about 6 quarts of pickles and hope to get more but the plants seem to be dying off as they are wont to do in late summer.

August 11, 2009

The train from Chicago is due to arrive in Sandusky at 3:55 a.m. and Jennifer and Katie should get home around 5:30 if it is on time (lol, we're talking about Amtrak).

Today, the boys and I made quick mozzarella and dill pickles.

Here is the mozzarella curd in the pot. This "quick" mozzarella is set with citric acid and rennet. Traditional mozzarella has a much longer ripening time to develop the acidity. The recipe is called "30-minute mozzarella" but it takes us longer than 30 minutes, probably closer to an hour. As soon as my acid titration kit (for testing pH) arrives in the mail I want to try the traditional recipe.

Here are the pickles. The recipe is simple for 1 quart: cucumbers, tablespoon of good salt, small handful of pickling spices, dill, garlic clove (optional), 1/4 cup whey, water to cover. The whole pickles will ferment at room temperature for 3 days and the slices for two before moving to cool storage. If the temperature of our kitchen was lower I would leave them longer at room temp but it's about 80 degrees in there. In the background of the photo is my jar of kombucha and in the foreground is the swiss cheese I made the weekend before last. It has developed a rind and is inside now to develop the eyes, thanks to the propionic shermani.

August 9, 2009

Jennifer and Katie arrived in Chicago this morning around 10:00 local time. They got on the train at 4:45 a.m. (ET) in Sandusky. They're traveling with Katie's girl scout troop. They'll be home early Wednesday morning but we miss them already.

Here is some cottage cheese that I made Friday draining:
It's a pretty simple process. The room temperature milk is clabbered by adding a mesophilic starter and is ready to cut curd in 12 to 18 hours. Raw milk can also be clabbered without the addition of any starter at all but it may take several days. The cut curds are drained for a couple hours, washed and drained for another half-hour.

Here is a not-so-good photo showing an open flake of the hay I bought Saturday. $4.00 per 60+ pound bale of second-cutting alfalfa (delivered) is a very good price and I was lucky to get it. I feel sorry for those in parts of the country where alfalfa doesn't grow and hay like this is $6.00 or more a bale shipped in. This was grown about half a mile from my farm.

August 6, 2009

Cheesemaking last Saturday:

The curd, after cutting and before stirring.

After the 40 minute stirring process. The curds are being raised to 120 degrees (F).


Initial press at 10 pounds. The cheese was turned and re-wrapped 3 times before pressing overnight at 15 pounds.

After initial press.


Whey.

Now the cheese is in a warm refrigerator being turned daily to develop a rind. After one week of rind development, we will bring it in to room temperature where the eyes will develop over a period of a couple weeks. Then it is back to the fridge for aging (3 months minimum).

August 1, 2009

Wow, it's hard to believe this is August already. Where has the summer gone? All in all, our summer here in Ohio has been quite pleasant with very few days of unbearable heat. We could have used more rain between mid-June and mid-July but that has been remedied.

Right now I'm waiting for the curd to make a clean break on a traditional Swiss cheese. Maybe I should have used 1/2 a rennet tablet instead of 1/4 because it appears that it's going to take 45 minutes longer than the recipe suggested to get ready to cut. When you're dealing with living food, you just have to roll with it.

Jennifer, Katie, and Nick are in the garden picking beans. They're going to be freezing them this afternoon as soon as the chicken stock is done on the stovetop. We've pretty much given up on canning vegetables because of the unnaturally high heat which destroys most of the vitamins, antioxidants, etc. in the veggies. We'll likely can some chicken, though, to make room in the freezer before lamb butchering in September.

I'll have to check but I think we may have some corn ready in the garden, too. We have much more squash and zucchini than we can use. I hope the winter squash does as well as the summer squash has. I'll also be fermenting some sour pickles this weekend. No heat and no vinegar, just pure lacto-fermented goodness. Oh, and I forgot the sauerkraut. I'm not sure there are enough hours left in the weekend. The whey from cheesemaking is a huge help in getting the pickles and cabbage off to a rip-roaring start.