The following information is based on the article, The Chemistry of Cast Iron Seasoning, posted on Sheryl’s Blog. In her blog she writes:

“The seasoning on cast iron is formed by fat polymerization, fat polymerization is maximized with a drying oil, and flaxseed oil is the only drying oil that’s edible.”

She goes into all the science behind seasoning of cast iron, but the gist of this is – that the use of cold-pressed, unrefined, organic flaxseed oil, with its low smoke point, is the best for achieving a hard, slick, lasting finish on cast iron.

“It’s possible to use a suboptimal oil for seasoning, like Crisco or bacon drippings, and still end up with a usable pan. Many (most) people do this. But the seasoning will be relatively soft, not as nonstick, and will tend to wear off. If you want the hardest, slickest seasoning possible, use the right oil: flaxseed oil.”

I followed her recommendation with my always-sticking cast iron pans, and I’m thrilled with the results! Here is how I did it . . .

The Science

When cooking we don’t want the oils we use to get to the point of smoking, because then they release free radicals which are carcinogenic. This is called the smoke point. I will add a chart of various oil’s smoke points at the end of this article. With seasoning, hitting the smoke point and going beyond that is exactly what we want. We want the oil to become so heated that a chemical reaction occurs (polymerization), which changes the oil into a sealant of sorts. So the science of seasoning is the opposite of the science of cooking.

Supplies

• Steel wool pad, or oven cleaner
• Good, thick oven mitts
• Paper towels, or Cotton cloth
• High grade, organic flax seed oil* – should be refrigerated and fresh; check the expiration date.

*You should never use the flax seed oil for cooking with heat because it smokes at very low temperatures, releasing free radicals which can get into your food. However, this oil is very good for you when consumed unheated like in salad dressings.

Cleaning Old Cast Iron

It was suggested that if your pan is very badly coated with stuck on gunk you can use oven cleaner to ‘strip it’ and start fresh from bare iron. This reminds me of the old advise of throwing a really bad pan into a very hot fire and burn the stuff off. Of course oven cleaner is composed of harsh chemicals so use this tip at your own discretion and with caution. I went a different route that worked just as well for me.

What I Did: Cleaning Old Pans For Re-Seasoning

I set my “everything sticks” cast iron pan on a burner and heated it (FYI – I have a glass stove top). I heated the pan, old oil, bits of burnt food and all for a couple of minutes on a medium temperature . . . Then I took my steel wool pad and began to scrub all that old gunk off the inside of the pan with the heat still on. I scrubbed the inside walls also, but not as vigorous as they were not as bad. I watched as everything started loosening and coming off.

Next, I ran my warm pan under hot water to rinse it all that stuff off, using a stiff kitchen brush to help. I put the pan back on the burner, turned off the heat and wiped it dry and clean with paper towels, leaving it there to completely dry and then cool. Success! I was left with a dry-grey looking pan with no seasoning on the inside. If you have food stuck on the handle, bottom or outside of your pan you’ll need to clean and re-season those areas as well.

The Best Process For Re-Seasoning Cast Iron

Seems like everything having to do with cast iron starts with heating; this is no exception.

Step 1: Pre-heat your pan to 200°F in your oven to open its pores and remove all moisture for about 10 -15 minutes, or when the pan looks dry and your sure it’s warmed up.

Step 2: Get your flax seed oil from the fridge and shake it really well to mix the contents. Then remove the pan from the oven using a good oven mitt and sit it on your stovetop. Squirt a quarter size drop of oil (for large skillet) in the pan and using your hand rub this into the pan all over. The pan will have a very shiny appearance at this point.

Step 3: Now wipe all that oil off with paper towels or a non-fuzzy cotton cloth. YES, all of it! It will look dull and no longer shiny, like all the flax oil is gone, but it isn’t. A very thin layer remains, and that’s exactly what you want. You are going to bake (polymerize) this oil into the pores of the pan, thereby sealing them.

Step 4: Now turn up your oven to its highest temp – mine went to 450°F (anywhere between 400 – 500 is good). Place your wiped-off pan upside down into the oven. You shouldn’t need any foil to catch drippings, because there had better not be enough oil left to drip! When your oven comes up to temp set a timer for one hour. At the end of an hour, turn off the oven but do not open the oven door. Let the pan cool inside the oven, about 1 hour, or until it’s cooled enough to handle. The pan will come out of the oven a little darker, but matte in texture – not the semi-gloss you’re aiming for. It needs more coats. In fact, it needs at least six coats.

Step 5: Repeat Steps 1 through 4 five more times.

Note: During your first seasoning session, the pan will smoke a lot, so be ready to open windows or use fans as needed. Soon the smoking will be finished and the rest of the time the polymerizing will have no smell/smoke. The first smoking is not just the flax seed oil but also some of the old stuff on the bottom of the pan that didn’t get removed completely. Every session beyond the first will not smoke as bad. In fact, you may find they each smoke a little less as I did.

Care And Cleaning Of Newly Seasoned Cast Iron

Most of the time I only have to wipe out my pans with paper towels. Sometimes when sticky sauces have been cooked I will run hot water over the pan and wipe it with a non-stick pad or brush at the same time. Then I place the pan back on the still warm burner and wipe dry with a paper towel. I do not re-coat it with oil. I only have to put oil in my pans now when cooking.

I’m so sorry I don’t have before and during pictures. I didn’t know I would be writing about my experience until Wardeh kindly invited me to do so. However, you can see the nice semi-gloss finish this process puts on a pan from this above picture. And I have to add that the entire experience was very straight forward and easy. I’m no longer tense over re-seasoning cast iron. I hope you will give this a try and have the same great results I’ve had.

Blessings,
Jami

I haven’t re-seasoned my own pans yet – not only was I waiting for her clear instructions, but I’ve been working on cleaning off the old seasoning on some of my pans. I picked up flax seed oil on Wednesday and I’m going to try to find time today to season at least one pan. (Perhaps the ableskiver pan I got at Goodwill last week!) What about you? Are you willing to give this a try? Do you have cast iron pans that could use some TLC?

Please consider guest posting at gnowfglins.com! See this post for more details and then contact me.

Smoke Points Of Various Oils

I’m sharing this post in Fight Back Friday! hosted by FoodRenegade.

Update: Enrollment is now CLOSED.

Current Class In Session: February 23 through July 23, 2010.

Upcoming Class: Fall 2010.

Subscribe to our mailing list for announcements of upcoming eCourses and dates. Thank you for your interest in GNOWFGLINS eCourses.

This is a special release from inside the eCourse. Enjoy!

We’re all capable of learning new routines – especially if we have a little help to get our head around the possibilities. But maintaining those routines can be a harder challenge. When the thrill wears off of trying something new, we’re left with the choice to keep something up… or let it go. So it is important that not only do we keep pressing forward and learning new healthy skills in our kitchen, but that we do it in a way that we can keep up and maintain that momentum.

Now I’m not saying that you’ll be doing and juggling everything at once. There are seasons in the kitchen just like there are seasons in the garden. If you’ve got mountains of produce to preserve, you’ll be busy with that for a time. Some tasks last all year and others phase in and out with the availability of the food, or the tastes of the family. For instance, you might not want to eat sprouts year-round.

Still, when you’re learning new routines and want to add something into the rotation, you can do some things to encourage your success – rather than failure – in establishing those routines. Let’s talk about those.

1. Remember Why

Why do you want to embrace God’s food? You might have many reasons – to give Him glory by embracing His design, better health for you and your family, to lose weight, to use your food dollars to support the livelihood of a local grower… Remember these reasons, and keep them in the fore-front of your mind for inspiration. Write them down and stick them to the fridge or above the kitchen sink. Remember.

2. Give Thanks To God

Being of service to our families – being able to cook and provide good, nourishing food is a blessing! Teaching our children to know the source of their food and how to cook it themselves – this is one of the life’s most important lessons. Being with our children, cooking together – that’s Real Fun! As a GNOWFGLINS reader, Lisa, wrote, “The glorious messes are all worth it, especially as I teach my children to work in the kitchen and they learn at a young age those things I had to start learning with a house full of toddlers and babies! Real food produces much revenue: good health, a good work ethic, and an appreciation for God’s provision and majesty in those amazing enzymes and bacteria! May we rejoice in the process as well as in the final product of our hands!”

3. Talk

Communicate with your family. Tell them what’s happening in the kitchen, share your reasons for seeking God’s foods, ask them what their own reasons are. Show them the beauty of a cultured food that can flourish indefinitely, growing itself and nourishing us along the way. Help everybody come on board as they embrace the vision, too. (And realize that sadly, not everyone will embrace it.)

4. Everyone Needs Time

Give everybody time to adjust to the new way of cooking and eating. I guarantee – not everyone will like everything you make in this eCourse the first time you make it. Fact of life. We get used to certain tastes and textures from the world of industrialized food, and these take time to change. If family members are coming out of eating mostly processed foods, their taste buds are trained by the unreal flavors, and excess sugars and salt. So give it time. Don’t be discouraged. Try and try again. There is hope. Real food tastes awesome, and I believe most people eventually come around.

5. Treat This Like A Job

Devote yourself to getting healthy and learning the new kitchen skills like you would approach a job. You’ll have a task to complete each week for the eCourse. Don’t consider it optional. Do it.

6. Don’t Undermine Your Efforts

I’m not exactly sure how this looks for everyone; it depends on the person. If you have a weakness for something (and everyone does), don’t let it get in the way. For someone, it could be procrastination – putting off work in the kitchen until it is too late in the day or they’re too tired, so it doesn’t get done. For some, it could be keeping processed snack foods in the house, which get eaten (you know they will). What’s your weakness? Identify it and put it to bed – don’t indulge it.

7. Know Your Strengths

What time of day do you work best? Do you prefer to work in silence or with the music blaring? Can you get anything done when the baby’s awake? Do you like to improvise or follow a recipe exactly? In the beginning, when learning new skills, capitalize on what you know you do best. Don’t stray too far from your comfort zone. Now, you do have to stray a little in this eCourse, but because we’ll take things one week at a time, it will stretch you a little at a time, not everything all at once. Give yourself the best chance for success by working within your limits. (On the other hand, don’t expect 100% success because that’s not realistic.)

8. Think In Cycles

Think of everything in 8 to 12 hour cycles. Thinking ahead just that far will put you so much further in the game. Think today what you need to soak for tomorrow’s meal. We will learn many of these cycled techniques in the eCourse, but what I’m telling you now is the principle behind it. Think today what breakfast is going to be tomorrow – if sourdough pancakes, get the batter fermenting. If muffins are the snack tomorrow, get the dough soaking. If you need stock tomorrow, get those chicken bones in the crockpot tonight. There are some tasks that ask you to think a few days in advance – for example, sprouting beans, or sprouting grains for sprouted flour. Once you adjust to thinking 12 hours ahead, this will seem like a breeze, too.

9. Clean Up As You Go

Keep up with clean up. From an emotional stand point, it is just so much easier to face the kitchen when it is not backed up with dirty dishes. I went without my dishwasher for a few months last year, and until we figured out how to keep up with all the dishes, I hated to be in the kitchen. Hated it. Then we got a system that pretty much worked for us while waiting for the dishwasher to be repaired and my feelings about cooking totally changed.

10. Be A Tool Minimalist

Spare yourself loads of dishes by using less tools, not more. Measure dry ingredients, then wet, so you can reuse bowls, and measuring cups and spoons.

11. Prep Extra & Scale It Up

Prep extra when you’re doing it. Need an onion, dice two (but plan to use it soon). Soaking a jar of nuts? Soak two (or three). Make bigger batches. Your effort goes twice as far. Make a big pot of chili and freeze half for next week. Cook a big pot of rice, and use it in meals for four days instead of two. If you switch up the sauces, which we’ll learn in the lesson on skillet dishes, no one will feel they’re eating the same meal for four days.

12. Enlist Help

Enlist the children. My children load and unload dishwasher, wash dishes by hand, put away dishes, soak sprouts, cook simple dishes. Everything they can do frees me up to do other things. And we all benefit from the team effort.

13. Revisit Your Routines

Real Life changes – we add new activities, new routines, and have ever-changing needs. Be willing to revisit your routines – what is working? what doesn’t? what routines can be altered to accommodate the changes?

Whether or not I see you inside the eCourse, I look forward to seeing you at the GNOWFGLINS blog – and I pray that God blesses you and your family with abundant health and happiness!

This article is also available as a PDF download: 13 Tips for Establishing and Maintaining Routines (53kb PDF)

I’m sharing this post in today’s Fight Back Friday at FoodRenegade.

As you seek to prepare nutritious food for yourself and those you love, what kitchen equipment do you find most helpful? Your slow cooker, a powerful blender, or perhaps a grain mill? As a blind homemaker, I am eager to try any gadget that might make kitchen chores easier. For example, I have various kinds of braille labeling and tactile marking equipment, which enable me to mark everything from stove knobs to cans and jars. (Or sometimes I just grab a kid and ask what’s in a particular package). Lately, however, I’ve found that one of my most useful pieces of food preparation equipment is something that does not actually reside in the kitchen.

For many blind and visually impaired people, the home computer has opened up a whole world of possibilities, perhaps even more than it has for people with normal vision. Special programs have been developed, which cause a computer’s sound card to speak what is displayed on the screen. Using this screen-reading software, a blind person can read and write e-mail messages, browse the web, and perform other computer-related tasks, such as–well–write a blog post.

In addition, with a scanner and OCR (optical character recognition) software, people who are blind can now purchase a print book from any bookstore, scan it into a computer, and hear the computer read it aloud. By contrast, only a small percentage of the books published each year are ever produced in an accessible format such as braille or audio recording. The majority of recorded or braille books come from state or national lending libraries for the blind, and must be mailed back when finished—not very helpful for books you want to refer to again and again, such as, say, cookbooks. Thus, until the advent of computers and scanners, most blind people possessed few, if any, books of their own. Needless to say, scanning and reading technology has been a tremendous blessing to the blind and visually impaired community!

Even though this incredible technology is continually being improved, some materials do not scan well–particularly cookbooks, where the fractions in recipe measurements are often misrecognized by OCR programs. Scanning is also time consuming, and like most moms, I have difficulty with time management. Years ago, after reading an article about the book Nourishing Traditions, I ordered a copy of the first edition and scanned a few chapters. Although I found the book fascinating, I never finished it. I had too many other scanning projects, such as parenting books and home school materials.

A few months ago, when I became interested in making kefir, I began doing Google searches to see what I could learn. I stumbled onto a wealth of information about real food that I never imagined to be available–wonderful sites like Wardeh’s GNOWFGLINS, Stephanie’s Keeper of the Home, Kimi’s Nourishing Gourmet, and many others. I could hardly believe my eyes–um–ears! All these recipes and food preparation tips, in a form I can access with my screen reader, rather than first having to scan it in and fix all the errors! I can download articles and recipes onto a special PDA with a braille display, and have pages of useful material literally at my fingertips. I can read a recipe and decide whether I think I can manage it, and whether it has ingredients I’m comfortable using. No need to scan a whole cookbook, or have my kids read recipe after recipe aloud, only to find I don’t care for most of them–the recipes, that is, not the kids.

Before our first child was born, I made most of our food from scratch. I used only whole grains, and my husband and I purchased few processed foods. Over the years, however, meal preparation degenerated into opening packages and punching buttons on the microwave. I am now in the beginning stages of preparing more whole foods for our meals.

Like most people, my time and energy are limited. The suggestions I most appreciate from Wardeh, and other real food bloggers, are the simple techniques I can use to make our food more nourishing–soaking grains and nuts, making kefir, sprouting, etc.

I want to be a good steward of God’s gifts of life and health. I know that neither I nor my loved ones are going to live forever in these earthly bodies. I don’t want to put my hope in fleeting things, like health or even life itself. I’m looking forward to a glorious future, because Jesus paid for my sins on the cross. His resurrection guarantees that I will one day rise in a perfect body. But while I’m here, I want to take care of the body He has given me. People who eat wisely still get sick sometimes, and everyone dies of something. I believe God is in charge of how long I live and how healthy I am, but I believe He wants me to do what I can to encourage good health. I consider myself blessed to be able to take advantage of the many nourishing foods He has created and the knowledge He has provided for how to benefit from them.

I feel a debt of gratitude to the many ladies who take time from their own busy days to share what they are learning about real food and real life. My hope is that some day, I will have the time and the computer savvy to develop my own blog, and help pass along some of these nourishing cyber-blessings.

Thank you, Paula. I feel a debt of gratitude to you for opening up your heart to us! You are a wonderful inspiration. God bless you and your family!

Are you interested in guest posting at GNOWFGLINS? I would love it! Please use the contact form to get ahold of me! I’m sharing this post in Real Food Wednesday, this week hosted by Ann Marie @ Cheeseslave.

My recipe binders needed some attention. I looked back at Such Treasures (our family/personal blog) and saw that the last time I updated my recipe system was June 2006.

My whole system was a mess. The recipes I used every day were in the pocket at the front of a binder – and I rarely looked at the pages inside the binder. I wasn’t using most of those recipes any more.

Want to know what kind of recipes were in there? Prepare to be shocked! I couldn’t believe how many tofu recipes I had – from when we were vegan. We don’t eat tofu anymore, because we now know that soy’s high amount of phytic acid is not neutralized through acidic soaking, which works for most other seeds. There are other downsides to soy, too, including how the phytoestrogens mess with thyroid and endocrine function.

Please note: Processed, fresh, and precipitated soy foods (such as tofu) should be avoided. Fermented soy foods such as miso, tempeh or soy sauce can be part of a healthy diet; the long fermentation they undergo is the key to neutralizing the phytates and other anti-nutrients. See this article for more information on the traditional versus modern use of fermented soy foods.

Anyway, during our vegan time, I had also collected my fair share of meat-free, dairy-free and egg-free recipes. I kept some of those, but marked them for updating to using raw milk, eggs, and soaked grains. Then there were the gluten-free recipes, some of which I kept, and some of which I tossed. It took me two afternoons to go through it all.

I’d love to hear how you organize your recipes, so be sure and share in the comments! I’ll give you a peek inside my binders. The first one was pretty, with a pretty cover and spine. I set that up at a MOPS meeting in the Fall of 2001. I added a second binder probably some time after June 2006. The second one is not so pretty, but works just as well.

The dividers are created by slipping a piece of white cardstock into a page protector and adhering a self-sticking index tab to the outer edge.

These are the dividers/sections I have, split up between the two binders:

• Cheese & Cultured Foods (just added!)
• Dips, Drinks, Appetizers and Sauces
• Breads
• Breakfast
• Desserts: Cookies & Bars
• Desserts: Cakes & Pies
• Soups
• Salads
• Veggies, Potatoes, Beans and Rice Dishes
• Main Dishes
• Seafood
• Tips & Info – charts and miscellaneous information

Looking at my sections, I see room for improvement, and perhaps will revisit these categories another day.

As for storing recipes in these sections, that is easy. For me, most of my recipes are printed from my blog or someone else’s blog or website. I slip these printed pages in page protectors and insert them in the appropriate section.

Speaking of printing – did you know that there’s a built in print stylesheet for every post here at GNOWFGLINS? When you’re on any post, you can hit print and that post will print very cleanly – without header, footer or sidebar. Comments won’t be included, however. If you need those, copy the comment text, paste it in a text editor, and then print.

If I get a recipe from somewhere else – like the one below from the Azure Standard sale catalog – it can go in the binder, too. I put a piece of scratch paper turned backward behind it.

I’ll be encouraging eCourse members to create a similar binder for their eCourse materials, whether for recipe or information. But, it doesn’t have to be done with page protectors. Regardless of how the binder is put together, the important thing is that you want to have easy access for working with the lessons and materials on a daily basis.

Now it is your turn. How do you organize your recipes?

I’m sharing this post in Real Food Wednesday, this week hosted by Ann Marie @ Cheeseslave.

The ice cream I used to make was good – we all enjoyed it. But it was soupy or icy. Well, no more. Our ice cream is now perfect – a soft serve, yet firm and scoopable ice cream without iciness or soupiness. I have mentioned this in a previous Tuesday Twister. It is time to make a post full of what I’ve learned.

I use a Cuisinart ice cream maker, the kind with an insulated freezer bowl. Many ice cream makers are similar to this; two of the tips apply to this type of ice cream maker only, not the old-fashioned kind.

1. Make sure the freezing container gets a good 24-hour deep freeze, so that it is frozen solid.
2. Use more cream and less milk. I am currently using 100% cream, and no milk at all.
3. Use a solid sweetener such as Rapadura, Sucanat or evaporated cane juice. The evaporated cane juice is somewhat refined, the others are not. Using a liquid sweetener (such as honey) with more water content increases the iciness of the ice cream.
4. Grind a coarse solid sweetener in a food processor or blender to make a fine texture. (Rapadura or Sucanat)
5. *Fill the ice cream maker halfway (perhaps 2/3) only. The frozen tub in which the filling gets churned only has so much freeze to give before it is no longer cold. If there’s too much filling, there’s not enough chilling.
6. Add ingredients which increase creaminess, such as egg yolks or avocado.
7. When chilling, choose a cool place in the house to do it. Don’t set the ice cream maker next to a woodstove, crockpot, or working oven. Conserve that freezing power!
8. (I thought of another!) Chill the filling thoroughly to maximize freezing power.

*This tip is the MOST important! My ice cream maker is a 2-quart. I only use it to the 1-quart capacity, or perhaps a little more. If I fill it anymore, we get soupy ice cream. Sonya concurs.

High-quality homemade ice cream is more frugal than eating it out. In 1 quart of ice cream, I spend $5 on local Jersey cream. The other ingredients are usually sugar and egg yolks, which I’d say adds another $1.50 max. This makes the total $6.50.

So in our family of five, a serving of perfect homemade ice cream costs $1.30. I can’t remember the last time we went out for real, gourmet ice cream – but I’m sure we paid more than $1.30 each! When we go out for run-of-the-mill ice cream, we pay more than $1.30 for one scoop.

Conclusion: no matter how you slice it, even homemade, high-quality, perfect ice cream is a steal. So go make some!

Check out my simple recipes for perfectly creamy chocolate ice cream and the chocolate syrup (pictured).

I’m sharing these tips in Pennywise Platter Thursday at The Nourishing Gourmet.

• 4 Easy Raw Cheese Recipes
• Basic Cheesemaking Cultures, Supplies and Equipment
• Benefits of Raw Cheese

In this post, I’ll share some of the books or online sources of cheesemaking information with which I’m familiar. Also, we’ll discuss online merchants for supplies and equipment.

Books on Cheesemaking

1. “The Cheesemaker’s Manual” by Margaret Peters-Morris.

Written for the home and on-farm cheesemaker, this manual is comprehensive. At the very beginning, the author classifies every type of cheese by production type. This alone was worth the book – to find out the difference between fresh unripened cheese, rennet coagulated fresh cheese, soft ripened cheese, and so on. Do you know what those mean? You will after you read this book! The book contains 50 full-color photographs to show the perfect hobbyist’ cheese vat and cheeses in various stages of development.

It would be impossible for me to tell you all the parts in the book, it is so comprehensive. I learned about milk components, how milk differs according to animal and breed, santitation methods, cheesemaking ingredients, and many more topics that pertain to cheesemaking. And then there are the recipes! At a total of 225 pages, this book pretty much covers it all.

This book does contain a discussion of pasteurization and homogenization, as if there is nothing negative about it. Besides the obvious – that God made milk raw, not pasteurized -  we learned the other day that complex and deliciously flavored cheeses result from raw milk. Still, I recommend this book for any cheesemaker’s shelf. The book is outrageously expensive on Amazon.com ($90 something), and moderately expensive at Homesteader Supply ($45.95). If you’re balking at the price, which I did at first, keep in mind that this is more like a reference book, a manual, rather than a casual recipe book. It could be the only cheesemaking book you’ll ever need.

2. “The Backyard Homestead” by Carleen Madigan. I’m including this in the list because some of you may already have it on your shelf, or want to get it for other topics homestead-related. Carleen Madigan devotes 9 packed pages to a cheesemaking overview, some tried and true cheese recipes, and plans for a cheese press.

3. “The Encyclopedia of Country Living” by Carla Emery. Called “the original manual for living off the land & doing it yourself,” this is another book that might be on your shelf or on your list. And of course, there’s a cheesemaking section. Carla Emery offers 14 pages (tiny print on big pages) of information to help you understand cheesemaking methods and types, and many recipes.

My list lacks the title by Ricki Carroll, “Home Cheese Making” and here’s why. I don’t think I can speak to it. I had the book for a few weeks, tried a recipe which turned out horribly, and then passed it on. I kind of wish I’d kept it now. I know some of you have used it and liked it, so I hope you’ll be willing to share what you liked about it, what recipes you tried, and anything else you care to share.

Online Recipes

Fias Co Farm. I have tried a half dozen recipes from this comprehensive site, and everything turns out fabulous. Each recipe contains close-up pictures for every step of the way and you learn something about cheese classifications along the way. So even if you didn’t have an official cheesemaking book, you’d learn quite a bit just by following these recipes.

Online Merchants

For cheesemaking supplies and cultures, I highly recommend these three merchants. I have done business with all of them repeatedly and can’t say enough about their customer service, quality of products, and reliability.

• Homesteader Supply – If you shop here, ask for Jerri and tell her I sent you. I know she’d be happy to hear where you found out about her business. When I call her, she’s usually making cheese. We talk at length about recipes, techniques, and this or that. She’s the one who recommended “The Cheesemaker’s Manual” to me and I’m so glad I listened to her!
• Cultures for Health – based out of the Portland (OR) area, Julie runs a tip top business. She’s great about answering emails and helping you through trouble spots no matter what cultured food you’re making. Her blog is also a great resource for articles on all things cultured.
• The Dairy Connection – This is “the” source for hobbyist cheese cultures at rock-bottom prices. Their shipping is quick, prices low, and choices extensive.

So… now it is your turn. What cheesemaking books do you love? Can you share about Ricki Carroll’s book? Do you have a site to recommend for online cheese recipes? How about online merchants? With your help, I hope to make this a comprehensive list of resources. Thanks!

See all posts in the Raw Cheese series.

I’m sharing this post in today’s Fight Back Friday, hosted by FoodRenegade.

I am not affiliated with any of the three merchants in the “online merchants” section, nor do I get a commission of any kind if you purchase through them. However, if you purchase any of the books from amazon via my links, I would earn an amazon commission. I’d be very grateful if you did that, but I’d just as soon see you borrowing the book from a friend or library, or getting it from your local bookstore.

This is the third installment in the Raw Cheese series. First, I shared four easy raw cheese recipes, and then we talked about the basic cultures, equipment and supplies. Today, we’ll talk about why raw cheese is so great.

Start with Raw Dairy

Raw cheeses are fermented and cultured foods that begin with raw dairy. On its own, the raw dairy contains enzymes and beneficial bacteria – all good for your digestion and your gut.

To make raw cheese, we culture the raw milk by encouraging the proliferation of already present beneficial bacteria, or by adding more beneficial strains of bacteria and/or yeast to the milk. So, the culturing heightens the probiotic levels and therefore, probiotic benefits.

Then we go on to curdle the cultured milk, which firms it up depending on how much rennet is used. This discussion is going to focus on the culturing stage, as this is the process that offers the benefits.

Culturing

One method of culturing milk, which I haven’t mentioned specifically yet, is just plain old souring, which milk does spontaneously.

“This is due to the process of lacto-fermentation during which lactic-acid-producing bacteria begin digesting or breaking down both milk sugar (lactose) and milk protein (casein). When these friendly bacteria have produced enough lactic acid to inactivate all putrefying bacteria, the milk is effectively preserved from spoilage for several days or weeks.” – Nourishing Traditions

In the cheeses I shared last week, the common culture used for three of those cheeses is an all-purpose mesophilic (MA or MM). These are starter sets containing two or three strains of Lactococcus bacteria that culture at middle (“meso”) temperatures. For example, they proliferate, producing lactic acid, around room temperature for some cheeses (the chevre) or 86 degrees for others (queso freso and feta). You might say that we are speeding up or furthering a process that would happen spontaneously to some degree.

In kefir cheese, the culture we use to create the kefir, which then becomes the cheese, is a probiotic “grain.” The grain is made of a combination of up to 50 beneficial yeasts and bacteria that live together symbiotically. When combined with raw milk, they feed on the lactose and multiply throughout the milk quite rapidly. The culturing happens within a day or two, depending on the consistency and taste you desire. We then use the drip method to separate the curds from the whey, resulting in a soft, spreadable kefir cheese that is brimming with good bacteria and yeast.

The Good Stuff

In all low temperature (below 115 to 118 degrees) methods of fermenting raw milk, the benefits are outstanding. The milk lasts longer, for several days or weeks, or in the case of cheese, for many months. The enzymes and bacteria remain viable, as opposed to using higher temperature processing that would kill them.

Here’s how culturing dairy – specifically, consuming various raw cheeses – aids the body, according to Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon:

• lowers cholesterol and protects against bone loss
• provides beneficial bacteria and lactic acid to the digestive tract, which guard against illness, pathogens and help to fully digest our food
• increases vitamin B and C content during fermentation
• makes milk more assimilable for those with lactose intolerance – a large part of the lactose is transformed into lactic acid
• contains lactase to help break down remaining lactose in the digestive tract
• increases enzyme activity that contributes to digestion

Pass on Pasteurized

Wondering if you can do the same thing with pasteurized milk? Nina Planck, in Real Food: What to Eat and Why answers this question.

“Raw milk is important to cheese. The enzymes and beneficial bacteria in raw milk aid fermentation. Pasteurized milk limits the action of rennet and retards ripening. Though many good cheeses are made from pasteurized milk, cheeses made from raw milk often contain more complex, subtle flavors — sometimes richer, sometimes mellower. People also swear by raw milk cheese for its beneficial enzymes and bacteria, which are tonics for digestion and immunity.”

Round Up

I will conclude this series in the next article by sharing a list of cheese-making resources: books and merchants. I hope you’ll add yours, too, as I cannot possibly know them all. Be sure to let me know if you have any more questions about raw cheese-making as I will also try to clear up lingering issues in the final article (or possibly add another if any questions warrant it).

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This post is part of Real Food Wednesday, this week hosted by the friendly Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

Yesterday, I shared 4 Easy Raw Cheese Recipes – the cheeses I have been making over and over since early last year.

Continuing the series, today I’ll share what basic cheesemaking supplies I use and recommend. My goal during all this time of learning cheesemaking has not only been to produce fantastic cheese, but to whittle down the processes and supplies until they’re as simple as can be. However, I know that I will probably learn more as time goes on.

Notes: I’m only including general supplies and equipment; special ingredients that would be recipe-dependent won’t be included. Such items would be wax (to protect cheese while it ages) or calf lipase (for feta). Also, I’m dealing with raw cheeses here – cheeses that not only start with raw milk, but whose temperature doesn’t exceed 118 degrees Fahrenheit. This precludes the inclusion of thermophilic starter cultures, which are cultures that proliferate at high temperatures.

The Cultures and/or Food Ingredients

All of these can be found in the Cultures section of my Resources page. The rennet coagulates the milk curds into cheese.

• All-purpose mesophilic culture (MA or MM) – all the raw cheeses I make are cultured with this group of bacteria which culture at middle (meso) temperatures, most often (for me) at room temperature or 86 degrees.
• Rennet tablets – according to Jerry at Homesteader Supply, vegetarian rennet dissolves more easily, so that’s what I’ve always purchased; used for harder cheeses that require a larger quantity of rennet.
• Double-strength liquid vegetable rennet – used by the drop; 1/2 teaspoon of this is equal to 1 rennet tablet. (note: this is double-strength, so adjust recipes accordingly)
• Unrefined sea salt

The Supplies & Equipment

Once again, you’ll find links to some of these on my Resources page.

• 90-count cheesecloth (2) – I use two layers of this for dripping out chevre, kefir cheese, or ricotta
• 3 x 3 foot square cotton cloth or butter muslin – from a clean, fairly-high thread count bedsheet; used to line a cheesepress or to hold hanging cheese
• *stainless steel colander(s) – sometimes I find it helpful to use 2 for one recipe
• *large (10 to 13 quart) stainless steel stockpot(s) – again, sometimes 2 is helpful, and particularly one that nests inside the other to create a double boiler to maintain temperature in cooler weather
• *stainless steel utensils – stirring spoon and slotted spoon
• basic kitchen thermometer (0 to 220 degrees Fahrenheit range) – 2 if making a double-boiler, one for each pot
• long knife – for cutting curds; I use a long, serrated bread knife
• cheese press (see below)
• a way to hang a bag of cheese (see below)

*Note on the stainless steel: In April 2009, the Weston A Price Foundation came out with updated information regarding cookware, suggesting that stainless steel may not be the best. Read more here (scroll down to “Cookware” under “Reducing Enviromental Exposure”). Other choices would be glass, or high-end lead-free enamel pans such as from Le Crueset.

The Press

Currently, this is my press, which has its drawbacks. Namely, that it is dangerous. So if you use something like this, be very, very careful.

The base is a rectangular baking dish to catch the whey. A sturdy baking rack balances on that. Then the press and follower sit on the rack, lined with cheesecloth. Now here’s the dangerous part. Free weights sit on the follower and weight down the cheese. If the cheese takes a not-level shape, the weights will start tipping and could slide off, hurting someone or breaking something. What you see is 35 pounds, the max pressure I’ve ever used. To prevent an accident, I build up to using 35 pounds, and I watch how the cheese is pressing down and adjust the position of the weights accordingly to facilitate it being level.

I’d love to hear from you if you have any leads on good quality, inexpensive cheese presses – or plans for a homemade press. Here’s a plan from Fias Co Farm. I like it because I could continue using my mold and follower, but it would give a level place for the weights to rest so that they wouldn’t fall off. I’d only need one smaller size mold to act as the “pusher.”

The Hanging

I no longer hang my chevre or kefir, as I wrote in my notes for those recipes (part 1 of this series). However, some cheeses do need to be hung, such as the feta I make. Here’s where I’d love to hear from others of you who’ve rigged ways to hang cheese in your kitchens.

This is how I hang my cheese. I put a long, sturdy stick across the top of the two cupboards that are around the sink area. I looped strong paracord around the stick. When I say looped, I mean looped. The bottom end of it is a loop onto which I tie the cheesecloth or cotton cloth that contains the cheese curds. This works well for me. I put a big stainless steel stockpot under the bag to catch the whey.

Now hopefully I haven’t forgotten anything! Please share what you use for supplies and equipment; I’d love to hear how I could do things better or simpler. And if you have questions, please leave them in the comments. I’ll be returning with part 3 (Raw Cheese Benefits) of this series next Wednesday, so stay tuned.

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In any case, a fantastic benefit of raising your own dairy (or finding a good source of local, raw, pastured dairy) is having extra milk for cheese. I don’t have as much extra milk as I’d like. We purchased the milking goats during lactation and most all of them declined in production due to the stress of switching homesteads – and most likely, a change in diet played a part in that, too.

But regardless, I’ve had extra milk to turn into cheese and kefir. The freezer’s got a shelf full of frozen cheeses stored for the time when our does get a break from milking due to pregnancy. So I won’t complain!

4 Easy Raw Cheese Recipes

Are you interested in raw cheese-making? I’ve tried a handful of recipes, and four of them I make over and over again. These are the cheeses that we eat daily (and that also populate my freezer) offering all the benefits of raw cultured milk, such as beneficial bacteria and enzymes. None of these cheeses go over 93 degrees Fahrenheit; they can still be called raw with the enzymes and bacteria intact.

Note: You may use the whey from all these cheeses (except for the feta) in your lacto-fermentation and/or soaking.

Chevre or Soft Cheese

My recipe takes off from Fias Co. Farm (like most of the recipes I follow), and it is delicious! We spread it on toast, or use it as the dairy base for a delicious creamy dressing. This is a 48-hour cheese and it pretty much makes itself. 24 hours for culturing, and 24 hours for dripping. I use two layers of 90-count cheesecloth and find no need to hang the cheese up – a colander suspended in a pot works just fine. I have learned alot about this process since my first attempt and you’ll see all my tweaks in my current recipe (guest posted at Edible Aria).

Kefir Cheese

Whenever we have too much kefir around, it inevitably becomes cheese following a simple dripping process. You can read about it here in my Probiotic Potato Salad recipe – although I no longer find it necessary to hang the bag of dripping kefir. I drip it through two layers of 90 count cheesecloth in a colander suspended in a pot. This cheese can also be used in the delicious creamy dressing or spread on toast, or seasoned up as a dip for veggies. Yogurt can be turned into a similar cheese.

Queso Fresco

What I really love about this cheese is that it is a raw cheese that shreds and melts. I have not made mozarella or other high-temperature cheeses yet because I hesitate to destroy all the beneficial bacteria and enzymes in raw milk. So for now, I’ve happily settled on this cheese to fill the purpose of a shreddable, meltable cheese that retains its good enzymes and bacteria. It requires a little extra attention at the cooking stage – you must nurture the curds as they slowly rise in temperature from 86 to 93 degrees F. This cheese does need a press; I use the Tome/St. Paulin mold and follower from The Diary Connection. (Thank you, Annette, for sharing this resource.) I weight it down with my husband’s weight-lifting weights – it needs 35 pounds of pressure by the end of the pressing. After pressing, you age it in the refrigerator for 3 days and then it is ready to eat! I’ll be pulling some out of the fridge today that just finished.

Feta Cheese

Also from Fias Co Farm, this feta cheese is easy to make. It does stink up the house, just like the author says. This is due to the culturing with calf lipase. One day my husband said he wasn’t sure he wanted to make cheese any more, the smell was so strong. But it is worth it, we’ve all come to agree. You’ll follow steps of culturing and setting the milk, cutting the curds, firming up the curds at a low temperature while the whey continues to separate out, and then hanging the cheese for 24 hours to harden. Then you cut the feta into chunks and allow it to age for three days before putting it into a salt water brine where it must age for another month. The result is absolutely delicious! You’ve never had feta cheese until you taste a homemade, fresh feta.

I will continue this series in the coming days. We’ll talk about the benefits of raw cheese, basic cheesemaking equipment and utensils, and anything else that might come up!

Update: Here’s part 2 of this series: Basic Cheesemaking Cultures and Supplies. And here’s part 3: Raw Cheese Benefits.

Subscribe to GNOWFGLINS RSS feed so you won’t miss anything. You’ll have the choice of receiving updates through your favorite feed reader or via email. Then there’s also my free newsletter, which offers some freebies as well as a weekly recap of posts delivered via email.

What cheese do you make or would you like to make? Do you have any questions about anything I’ve shared? What kind of information would you like to know about cheesemaking?

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday.

Here we are, in 2010! I have been turning my mind toward personal, family, and blogging goals.

A Promising 2009

Before I share some brief goals for 2010, I’d like to recap 2009, a promising year for GNOWFGLINS and its readers. Thank you all for helping GNOWFGLINS spread the message of embracing God’s foods. (Remember, God gave food for the body AND soul.)

In 2009, our family made the switch from a whole food and gluten-free diet to a Nourishing Traditions style diet. In a nutshell, we incorporated traditional food preparation methods, such as soaking, fermenting and sprouting, to our already whole food diet. This change allowed my daughter to eat gluten again, and allowed my previously allergic son to eat eggs again. Also, we started raising our own dairy goats, which gave us dairy foods for the first time in years! For more about all these changes, read Why Nourishing Traditions and We Reversed Food Allergies Through Nourishing Foods.

Also in 2009, just the other day in fact, we completed many months of work and iterations on the Defining GNOWFGLINS video. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should. The video shows the ideal for which we strive, because we love God and desire to honor His design. In the video, we show what God’s foods are, and we hope to inspire you to embrace them.

In 2009, and in spite of shifting our diet, GNOWFGLINS readership continued to grow. Currently, GNOWFGLINS receives 30,000 page views per month, more than doubling from 13,000 page views at the beginning of 2009. And, 774 people are subscribed to GNOWFGLINS via the RSS feed or the newsletter. Thank you to all who read, comment and share GNOWFGLINS. We are thankful for each of you!

Top 8 Posts of 2009

In 2009, the top 8 viewed posts were:

1. Recipes
2. Sprouting Beans: Lentils, Mung Beans, and Chickpeas (Garbanzos)
3. Sprouting Grains for Bread
4. Beyond Sugar: Overcoming the Withdrawal Symptoms of Going Without Sugar
5. Reheating Foods Without a Microwave
6. Cooking Dry Beans
7. Lacto-Fermented Turnips and Beets
8. Basic Easy Artisan Bread (with Sprouted Grains)

What’s In Store for 2010

I’ll share some of the goals we have for GNOWFGLINS and our family (as it relates to food) in the coming year.

• raise our own chickens and possibly ducks for meat and eggs
• raise a grass-fed Jersey cow for milk and cream
• help more people embrace God’s foods – GNOWFGLINS
• create multi-media educational materials for subscribers of GNOWFGLINS
• develop nutritious portable meals or meal components, like jerky, pemmican, energy bars – survival food, hiking food, out for the day kind of food
• continue to update the recipes to make them Nourishing Traditions friendly – this is a huge task! (anyone want to help?)

What Do You Want for 2010?

How was 2009 for you? Have you been thinking about what you want to accomplish in the coming year? What is God doing in your heart with regard to His food? How can GNOWFGLINS help you?

Sylvia @ The Christian HomeKeeper wrote a wonderful article on the difference between resolutions and goals. She points out that goals are permanent, because they include action steps for achieving them. Give the article a read; it may help you with your goal setting, whether for the New Year or anytime.