Making goat’s milk cheese
When I started making cheese at my own facility, I had to wait until my skills would be good enough to use expensive goat’s milk. Goat’s milk price is more than double to triple of cow’s milk, and the yield is lower than cow’s milk by about 20%. Goat’s milk is a precious ingredient for a beginner cheesemaker. After I acquired the technique of cheesemaking, it took a few more months to find the source of good goat’s milk, Volpi Ranch, in Marin County.
Goat’s milk is different from cow’s milk in many aspects. The protein structure is different and fragile, so it’s difficult to make large cheese with. The fat structure also is more fragile and volatile than cow’s milk, and it can develop an almost burning taste and gamey smell from oxidized fat easily. The key to making delicately good goat cheese is using very fresh milk. That’s the reason I built my dairy inside of Volpi Ranch.
Working with goat’s milk is delightful and requires dexterity. Goat’s milk feels like a fine Irish linen compared to cow’s milk, which gives me the feeling of sturdy cotton. I love the stark white color and the texture of the milk.
Acappella
It’s the first goat’s milk soft cheese I made, and I still remember the day I chose the name Acappella.
Since I practiced my soft cheesemaking from cow’s milk and mixed milk, when I was ready to use only goat’s milk and made it successfully, I thought it reflected the purity of the vocal sound without any accompanist. I was not even thinking of using any fancy shapes but simple rounds.
The bluish-grey rind from ash and Geotricum mold gently holds the stark white goat’s milk curd, and when it gets aged, the earthy and savory tone of the milk expresses itself fully and becomes utterly tender.
-Size: 4.5oz
-Ingredients: goat’s milk, starter culture, vegetarian rennet, ash, salt
Fresh Goat cheese and Pastoral
The simplest cheese I make. Making fresh cheese is simple. It takes very few ingredients and time. The starter culture of lactic acid bacteria is added in 75F milk, and rennet is followed. The curd sets in 18-20 hours, so you wait until it’s ready. And you drain the curd and add salt. I hope that my fresh goat cheese has the purity and the taste of fresh goat’s milk.
To make Pastoral, I roll the fresh cheese in the mixture of herbs and decorate it with pink peppercorns.
-Size: Fresh goat disc 4oz. Pastoral 8oz
-Ingredients: goat’s milk, starter culture, vegetarian rennet, salt, ( herbs for Pastoral)
Bel Canto
Truncated pyramid-shaped ash-covered cheese.
Bel Canto is the singing style that focuses on the beauty of sound and the brilliance of performance. As the name indicates, the cheese is developed to show the tonal and phrasing quality of goat’s milk. The shape is traditional from Loir Valley, and the size is significant. As 19C singer Ffrangcon-Davies put it, the true purpose of singing is to give utterance to certain hidden depths in our nature that can be adequately expressed in no other way. I hope I can express the beauty of goat’s milk through Bel Canto.
-Size: 8-9oz
-Ingredients: goat’s milk, starter culture, vegetarian rennet, ash, salt
Crottin
Crottin is a very traditional Loire Valley goat’s milk cheese, so the name can be misleading. My crottin has gone through various changes from the version which is very similar to the traditional cheese with natural rind to what you see now. This cheese should not be aged to be soft but to stay hard. When the cheese is fully aged, the cut surface looks like marble. My crottin has a fluffy white rind of Penicillium Candidum.
-Size: 3.5-4oz
-Ingredients: goat’s milk, starter culture, vegetarian rennet, salt
Cavatina
It’s a log-shaped ash-covered goat’s milk cheese. I made this cheese for the chef Corey Lee when he was a chef de cuisine at the French Laundry. Most cheeses were round and flat, and I wanted to offer him something he could cut geometrically. The log shape has an oval cut surface, and he could give him the freedom to work on the shape. I asked him to find the name since it was made for him. At the meeting after the service, he asked a few young chefs the suggestions, and one chef came up with “Cavatina”. It’s a lyrical song in music, and the most famous piece is the guitar music used for the movie ‘deer hunter’. Very gentle and a narrative song was suitable for what the cheese reflects. When the cheese is aged, the rind starts showing wrinkles as the inside gets softer. I love to watch the cheese being aged. The taste gains pungency and depth as any well-made fermented food ages.
-Size:5.5-6oz
-Ingredients: goat’s milk, starter culture, vegetarian rennet, ash, salt
Contralto
There are a few items of my cheese I decided the name first and worked hard to make the cheese to reflect the musical meaning of it. Contralto is the cheese I had worked for years to make. Contralto is the lowest female vocal sound, and it often performed in religious oratorios and mass pieces. I was at the concert of Pergolesi’s Stabat Matter in Italy, and the voice of Maria has been staying with me. At the dairy, I started dreaming of making cheese I could name ‘Contralto’. The cheese should have a smooth texture, a delicate female feeling with deep flavor profile with a hint of pungency. To do that, any 4oz small piece would not work. The delicate nature could be from 100% goat’s milk, the smooth texture could come from rennet curd, and the pungent flavor could come from washed rind. And Contralto was born. It ended up having an orange rind with annatto added after a few months because my helpers could not distinguish Contralto from Alto. The cheese from the same version is made from cow’s milk, Alto. Possibly the most similar cheese to Contralto would be Chevrotin AOP from Savoie, France.
-Size: 14-16oz.
-Ingredients: goat’s milk, starter culture, vegetarian rennet, salt, annatto
Duet
Herb-infused goat’s milk cheese. When I was looking for a house to buy, the future I wanted to have the most was a living room which can accommodate a grand piano someday and a garden. My house came with a huge rosemary bush at the center of the garden. Every time I watered the garden, a gentle scent lifted my mood, and I wanted to add this delightful feeling to the cheese; something gentle and subtle, so it can be missed, but, when you pay attention to it, it can lift your mood.
I infuse various herbs in warm pasteurized milk before I add it to the milk for curdling. I feel that the herb extract thickens the milk a little, so the texture is denser than my other goat’s milk cheese. I decorate the herb used on the top.
It’s the piece made from the milk and the herb of the season, a duet.
-Size:5oz
-Ingredients: goat’s milk, starter culture, vegetarian rennet, herb, salt
Minuet and Minuetto
Goat’s milk cheese with cow’s milk cream.
Minuet was designed for sparkling wine tasting 25 years ago. I wanted to make this cheese which can show the delicate nature of goat milk and has the lingering richness of triple cream cheese with elegance, and the cheese was born. Like Picolo and Largo, I add crème fraiche into the drained goat’s milk curd, mold, salt, and age for 2 weeks to have the full growth of Penicillium Candidum. The richness of the cream makes a beautiful balance with the acidity of goat curd and gives lusciousness. Minuetto is a smaller version of Minuet.
-Size: Minuet 8oz, Minuetto 4.5oz
-Ingredients: goat’s milk, starter culture, vegetarian rennet, salt, cream
Ostinato
This cheese starts from Acappella, and the hole in the middle is placed later. Due to increased surface area, this cheese ages quicker to develop a melting texture. Ostinato means repeated phrases or rhythmic patterns in music, and it reflects the shape and the origin of the cheese.
-Size: 4-4.5oz
-Ingredients: goat’s milk, starter culture, vegetarian rennet, ash, salt
Tomme Dolce
Non-cooked, pressed hard cheese rubbed with fruit conserve.
Tomme is a generic name for a simple round-shaped cheese made by farmers for their own consumption. My tomme is made from a simple recipe from Pyrenees Mountain cheesemakers. After the fresh cheese is made, the surface is dried and rubbed with the fruit conserve to add sweetness. Dolce in music means ‘play sweetly or gently’ to make soft and tender feelings. In Tomme Dolce, the tenderness of goat’s milk is enhanced by the sweetness of fruit conserved from local fruits.
For the current version, dark cherry conserve is used.
-Size: 4-5lb
-Ingredients: goat’s cheese, starter culture, rennet, salt, fruit conserve