Blessed are the cheesemakers

There's a traditional Olde English saying which goes something along the lines of 'make hay whilst the sun shines, and halloumi when it does not'. It was a wet & miserable Saturday this weekend, so after a vigorous morning of chores we settled down in the afternoon to make some cheese.

We had a 'Mad Millies soft cheesemaking kit' that we bought a few months ago with 'all you need to make different cheeses'. That was a bit of an overstatement as once you opened it they also recommended a 'Mad Millies cheesemaking equipment' kit. Luckily we had everything we needed (with a bit of improvisation) so were able to crack on.

Further inspection showed that the Mad Millies kit didn't really contain that much at all - a feta mould (but we were making halloumi), some liquid rennet, some dried herbs, cheese salt, cheesecloth, some cultures and a manual that had been printed on standard A4 printer paper. Still, the instructions for halloumi looked simple enough - 

Take 4l of unhomogenised milk

Heat to 45 degrees

Add rennet in solution, stir and leave sitting at 45 degrees for 45 minutes, when you should get a 'clean break' (where most of the solid curd has formed)

It was at this point that it all went sour (*arf*). Despite being left for a couple of hours, the milk showed no sign of solidifying. I looked up why this might be, and the main reason is the rennet is either past it's use by date or has been stored incorrectly. Unfortunately there was no use-by date on the bottle that we had. 

We ended up leaving it overnight and even then there was still a fair bit of moisture in the milk. Nevermind - it didn't taste 'off' so the only thing to do was (cheese) press on.

The next morning there was some solidification of the milk, but still quite a lot of moisture

 

We sliced the curds and gave them a stir

Then drained the mix through cheese cloth, which separates the (liquid) whey from the (solid) curds. The draining took more than a couple of hours, so we had to load it up with water-filled containers and go drink beer whilst we were waiting.

After getting back from the pub the curds had dried out

We boiled it up in salty water for 10 or so minutes (until it rose the surface of the water) and then salted and cooled it

At this point it squeaked your teeth like haloumi should, although it tasted a lot more milky than the shop-bought equivalent.

Still tasted pretty good fried up though 

To be honest the cheese kit was a bit of a waste of cash. If you fancy making soft cheese (haloumi, cottage cheese, ricotta, feta) then it's not that hard and it doesn't need much specialised kit. The Mad Millies kit gave us the inspiration to give it a go, but it didn't really give us much to work with. The instructions are vague & unclear - 'when the texture seems right' doesn't help much first time around, and every recipe I've seen online suggests a milk temperature of between 32 and 38 degrees for haloumi whearas the paper guide suggests a temperature of 45 degrees. Even the rennet didn't have a use-by date on the bottle, although their website suggests you make sure the rennet you use is still within its active life. I reckon you'd be better off getting a cheesemaking book from an op-shop, looking up recipes on-line, getting the rennet locally or over the 'net and spend the savings at a boutique beer festival whilst the cheese is draining.