# Chevre Troubleshooting



## H Diamond Farms

So, I know nothing about cheese making except the basics of making soft white cheese from my goat's milk. ( I call it chevre, which I think is right, lol) So, I got some buttermilk culture and cultured some buttermilk a week or so ago. Last night I followed the chevre recipe in Goats Produce Too, and used the buttermilk along with some diluted rennet. Added it to the milk that was approx. 85 degrees, it was all in my big stainless stock pot. I usually sit my cheese in the oven overnight, then hang it the next morning. Well, this morning all the "curd" was on the top, and it was full of air bubbles/holes. I had this happen the last time I made cheese in this pot also. I wasn't using buttermilk, but another mesophilic ( I think that's the right one, lol) culture. Can't remember the name of it, but it was from Hoeggers. Oddly enough, the last time I had this stock pot full that went wrong, I also had two other gallon jars of milk setting in the oven with it and they came out just fine. 
So my questions are: A) what is causing the cheese to do this, and B) why is it only happening in the stock pot? 

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm definitely clueless when it comes to troubleshooting cheese problems.


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## doublebowgoats

Could be contamination. I had that happen early in the season most of the times I tried to make the soft cheese that had to sit for a long time, but not with the monterey jack or mozzarella. So I scoured everything and managed to have success with it later. I think the culprit is yeast. Could be in your pot or in the air from cooking other foods


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## H Diamond Farms

Contamination was my guess also, but I found it weird that another container in the same oven at the same time was fine lol. I'm going to try another batch made exactly the same way just in a different container and see what happens.


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## SANDQ

It is a form af bacteria causing this, which if I remember correctly is coliform. It can come from lack of hygene in you milking methods, or your cheese making equipment, or how you cool your milk after milking... this is more likely. We have had it happen to us early on in our cheese making days and it was due to not cooling the milk quick enough after milking. We used to just put the milk in the fridge but it doesnt cool quick enough, and it gives the bacteria causing you the problems chance to multiply very quickly. We cured this problem at first by putting the filtered raw milk in 2 litre plastic soda bottles in the freezer untill it is ice cold then in the fridge, I also suggest you put your fride to the coldest setting it has. Now we have a space in our chest freezer and put the filtered milk in a milking bucket straight into that after milking and chill as quickly as possible. Your aim is to drop the temperature of the milk to 6 Celcius as soon as possible, for short term storage raw milk should be stored at 6 Celcius, for a longer term 2/3 days it should be stored at 2 degrees celcius, I hope this helps.


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