A new goat cheese...... "Kilchoan Crofter"

With a goat producing just under 3 litres of milk a day even three families can't drink enough so there's a surplus for processing. This week we made the first kilogram of , "Kilchoan Crofter"  brand.

It was an exercise in learning by doing and making mistakes. I didn't incubate the starter for long enough and then added too little, 1.5ml instead of 15ml per lire of milk. I miss read the instructions. The milk wasn't acid enough for the rennet to work so we had to bung in some lemon juice. That worked, it curdled immediately.

No specialised equipment was needed apart from an old dairy thermometer calibrated in Fahrenheit and an ancient tongue press. The result has been about 1kg of cheese from 10kg of milk. After pressing the cheese will have to sit on a shelf in Dale's utility room with regular turning and wiping for up to three months.

Kilchoan Crofter is unlikely to appear in the shops because the cost of meeting all the regulations for milking, processing and sales would be in excess of £50k so we'll just have to eat it ourselves,and I really have made an appointment with Specsavers.