How To Use Sourdough To Make Cheese
Make cheese with sourdough starter culture. Learn to make cheese the natural way if you don't have raw milk. Includes a gluten-free option.
Equipment
- A small post - to warm your cupful of milk for making the starter culture
- A stainless steel pot for heating the milk - 3 quart or big enough for the amount of milk you want to turn into cheese. Don't use aluminum. You can also use a glass bowl for your milk and place it in a warm water bath to heat the milk.
- Large spoon for stirring
- Measuring tablespoon
- Buttermuslin or floursack towel - for straining the cheese
- A glass or stainless steel bowl - to catch the whey (it will need to hold at least 2 quarts)
- Thermometer (optional) - You can use your wrist or finger. It should feel 'baby bottle warm'
Ingredients
- 2 quarts Milk - I always use whole milk for my cheese, but you can make it with reduced fat milk too. I'd use at least 1% fat. Yields are less with lower fat content.
- 2 tbsp Sourdough or fermentation juice - This works with active or discard (unfed) sourdough
- 1½ tsp Sea salt (optional) - no additives! Salt is neccessary for long-term storage.
Instructions
Make The Starter Culture (Clabber)
- Start with a cup milk
- Heat the milk to about 80-85 degrees.
- Add the sourdough starter.
- Mix well.
- Cover and let it sit in a warm spot for about 24 hours or maybe longer. This first round will take the longest. You'll find that the milk will clabber and turn thick like yogurt. You can taste it if you like, but it won't taste that great yet. It takes a while to make it taste delicious, so let's repeat this.
- Warm another cup of milk in a fresh jar and add a teaspoon of the soured milk to your fresh cup of milk. Cover and let it sit at a warm room temperature for another 12-24 hours or till it's thick. This should take less time.
- Repeat a couple more times. By day 3 or 4 your clabber should start to smell wonderful and taste delicious. Now you can proceed to make cheese with it, or just eat it like you would yogurt.
- Keep the starter going by repeating the process or refrigerate your starter culture for up to a week. I wouldn't wait too long before feeding it again while it's this young. After it gets more mature, I would expect that it will last in the fridge for a long time between feedings.
Make A Simple Soft Cheese With Your Sourdough Cheese Starter
- If you are ready to make a delicious soft cheese, prepare your milk by heating it to about 85 degrees. (baby bottle warm)
- Stir in two tablespoons of the sourdough clabber. Mix it well, but don't beat air into the milk. Then cover the pot and set aside. (You can also transfer it to a mason jar or a glass bowl at this point if you need your pot).
- Let sit in a warm spot out of direct sun until it is very thick, about 24 hours. I like to wrap my incubation container in a thick towel to keep the temperature even inside it.
- Line a bowl with a cheesecloth.
- Scoop into the clabber into the cheesecloth and knot up the ends.
- Hang to let drain until it's the desired consistency.
- Save the whey for other uses. You can keep some of it to start a new batch of cheese later, and you can freeze some of it in ice cube trays, and bag the cubes once they are solid frozen. One ⅙ cup ice cube can be used to start half a gallon of milk next time you make cheese. Check my post on uses for whey if you want some ideas. Whey is so valuable, never toss it!
- Optional: Mix with salt and hang to drain another hour or so. Don't use salt if you'll be using this in sweet desserts, but for long term storage you'll want to add salt.
Storage
- Transfer to a serving bowl and enjoy. Store for up to a week in the fridge if unsalted.
- For long storage, it needs to be salted. Take the salted cheese and pack a pint jar full to the top, squeezing out as much of the air as possible while filling, and seal it well, it can last in the refrigerator for weeks and months. This can also be stored in a cold cellar. Note that the flavor may get stronger over time. As cheese ages it continues to ripen and progress, but at a much slower rate when chilled.
Notes
Tips For Making Great Cheese With Sourdough Starter
- If you want to scale up the cheese recipe and make more, then use one tablespoon of sourdough clabber, kefir, or fermentation brine for each quart of milk. I have made this cheese with a quart before and used one tablespoon of the starter. This yielded a cup of cheese.
- What milk to use: Soft cheeses can be made with ultra pasteurized milk, but pasteurized milk is better for you and yields better results. And you'll definitely want to use pasteurized milk for hard cheese, not ultra pasteurized. In my trials, the ultra-pasteurized did not coagulate with rennet.
- If you want to keep your starter going indefinitely after you created it, warm a cupful of milk, add a teaspoon of the latest batch of clabber, let it get thick and then repeat or refrigerate. You can eat your previous clabber and use the freshest one for making cheese or more clabber once a week or so.
- Long term storage: To keep some of your homemade cheese starter culture handy for the long-term, you can also freeze some in an ice cube tray and use those cubes to make cheese when you're ready. Transfer to a freezer container after they are frozen solid. They'll be fine for about 3 months. You may also do this with the whey from draining your cheese.