More kefir cheese madness

I've been having so much fun with kefir that I decided to do some more research about it. I won't re-write all I learned; a simple google search will tell you more than you ever wanted about kefir. But to summarize: kefir is a cultured milk beverage that, like yogurt, originated in the Caucasus Mountains, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, crossing the borders of Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbiajan. According to the computerized cosmos, kefir has 5 times the beneficial microflora that yoghurt does and has helped treat everything from indigestion to tuberculosis. It also has lots of good vitamins, minerals and enzymes. I like it because it's delicious and easy to make.

We drink kefir every morning with breakfast, and in the past I've strained it into a thicker, more yogurty cream for serving with rice and beans. But now I'm going crazy with kefir cheese.

Here is some kefir hanging in a towel so that the whey is strained out of it. Last time I didn't hang it, I just set it in a towel in a strainer, and it worked all right but the kefir cheese was a bit wet. I think gravity will be more on my side this way, for a drier cheese that stays in ball-form instead of disintegrating in the jar of olive oil.

It seemed to work pretty well: here are the kefir balls preserved in olive oil. The only issue now is that the kefir floats to the top, instead of staying submerged in olive oil. So I have to swish it around occasionally to make sure the cheese stays oil-coated and unexposed to air.

I also didn't have enough olive oil to cover all the kefir, so I tried a makeshift cheese press to see how the rest of the kefir would work as a hard cheese. It came out looking and feeling a bit like queso fresco, so at first I hoped it would work well with our usual rice and bean staples.

Which would be wonderful, since cheese is currently our chief food budgeting woe -- there seems to be no affordable way to get enough organic cheese for our pizza and taco needs. (We settle for Tillamook cheese because although it's not organic, at least it is labelled 'no-rBGH.')

But on second thought, after eating more than a small taste I realized I don't really like the taste of the dry kefir cheese. So I dipped it in beeswax to preserve it and see if it mellows with age. Dipping it in beeswax turned out to be a really fun process, so I hope the cheese ends up tasting good.

This cheese-aging thing was slotted to be my next experiment anyway, because I saw it on a website with many other kefir cheese variations. Dom's (very eccentric!) kefir website is an awesome resource. If you want to be overwhelmed with kefir possibilities, this is the place to go! http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html

Kefir cheese after being pressed.

Kefir cheese dipped in beeswax.

I like making kefir cheese because there's no fussing with heating milk, using the dairy thermometer, or praying that the rennet will do its magic curdling. Also, I find my stomach does better with dairy when I'm drinking kefir. I do want to make real cheese one of these days, but for now this is where I get my kicks.