Cheese – Dead Cow Cheese

Dead cow cheese. Tuesday 5th September 2011, Recipe 20110905

How to make Dead Cow cheese– an introduction

I have been experimenting with different cheese making techniques in an attempt at making a unique cheese that is wonderful – never mind trying out the standard tried and true techniques. In my research on cheese making I found out that alcohol will curdle cheese without the loss of calcium. Acid based curdling releases a lot of the calcium from the milk into the whey hence cheese makers add back the calcium in the form of calcium salts. (I just cannot find the articles, just now. when I do I will put them here)

I did not fancy driving down the KESAS highway towards Klang to get some expensive (heavily taxed) ethanol for this experiment hence I decided to use yeast to generate the alcohol within the milk. The process is simple enough but very risky and dangerous. Below is the process I tried and I wouldn’t recommend that you try this as the by-products of yeast fermentation if done incorrectly can lead to blindness and death, due to methanol formation.

The Dead Cow cheese recipe

Photos of Dead Cow cheese making process

Made milk with 600ml water and 300g milk powder and 6g of yeast.

After a few hours you will see the yeast active and fermentation has begun. Look at how bubbly it has become.

I left the bottle open so that the gasses produced by fermentation could escape otherwise the bottle could explode due to the pressure build up. I do not know why fruit flies get excited and are attracted to yeast based fermentation process. I had to cover the open lid with a porous cloth to prevent the flies from getting in. One or two fruit flies managed to get in and I do not know whether they managed to contaminate my fermentation process.

On the fourth day of fermentation you could get a very strong aroma of alcohol and a cheddar type aroma. The cheddar type aroma was very strong almost like very aged cheddar. It reminded me of the Cheddar we used to get in Malaysia in the 1960’s. The modern cheddar we get today in Malaysia is a watered down version of the 1960’s cheddar. Actually they are in such a hurry to get production out and converted into sales that they don’t allow them to mature for sufficient long period of time.

By the 6th day of fermentation you will notice that the curd formation is almost complete. That is they have formed larger lumps of curd. If you are serious about learning how to make cheese here is the link.

On the 9th day for fermentation the whey has turned a darker color and most of the curd is floating.

You can see that the the top of curd is almost dry. I must tell you the stench from this fermentation had reached a peak. Somewhere between the 4th day of fermentation and the 9th day of fermentation it took on an awful pungent smell. I threw the whole thing away as I was really worried that my neighbors would think I had a dead cow in my apartment.

Actually I tried a smear of the ‘cheese’ on my tongue and it was very bitter to taste. Worst still the bitter taste lasted on my tongue for hours.

Now I understand why cheese makers are extremely careful about not allowing yeast to get into their milk and curds. It is possible to make cheese with yeast but the process is strung with pitfalls and potentially dangerous by-products.Well I have to run this experiment again but I will have to find a guinea pig to do the taste testing for me. … what are friends for? … No, really, what are friends for?

This article “How to make Dead Cow Cheese” was researched and written by Peter Achutha.