How long to store cheese in brine and without. How to make feta cheese at home How to preserve homemade feta cheese for a long time
Brynza is a type of delicious pickled cheese. It contains easily digestible calcium and many other trace elements and vitamins. How to store cheese without losing quality? Usefulness and quality are assessed by the mass fraction of fat. Cheese cheese with a fat content of 50% is considered the most delicious.
When buying, choose wisely
High-quality cheese is white or pale yellow in color, with a dense consistency, a minimal amount of voids, similar to cottage cheese, but does not break up into small pieces. A dried edge appears during long-term storage and partial loss of beneficial properties.
This is a pickle product
Under production conditions, this product is kept in brine (brine) for up to 60 days. To preserve the excellent fermented milk taste, after 20 days of aging the cheese is sent for sale. To protect it from spoilage, it is supplied for sale in special packaging with brine.
If the cheese is purchased in a vacuum container
At home, the use of brine is also provided.
- The cheese is transferred to a plastic container or glass jar.
- Fill with brine.
- Cover with a lid and place in the refrigerator, where it is stored for 2-3 weeks.
If there is no brine, then the cheese is tightly wrapped in foil or film. In this form it can be stored for no more than a week.
Pickled cheese is sometimes a little too salty. Therefore, before use, it can be soaked for several hours in chilled boiled water.
For long term storage
If the cheese was purchased without brine or there is not enough of it for storage, then it is absolutely not difficult to make it yourself at home.
Based on a three-liter jar:
- 1.5 liters of boiled, cooled water is poured into a container;
- pour 5 tablespoons of salt and completely dissolve;
- The salt concentration is checked using a well-washed egg: if its tip the size of a 10-ruble coin floats up, the brine is ready for use.
Brine cheese is stored at home in enamel containers, three-liter jars, and plastic containers for 2 weeks.
Take note
A long stay in lightly salted brine makes the cheese soft.
Over-salted brine cheese does not lose its usefulness, and excess salt is eliminated by simply soaking it in milk or water.
If there are no conditions and opportunity to prepare the brine, simply put the cheese in a plastic container. And if it continues to dry out, put it in the freezer of the refrigerator.
After defrosting, the taste of the cheese will decrease slightly, but it will be quite suitable for further use in cooking.
A little more about cheese
Do not buy this product in large pieces. Even if all the rules of storage in the refrigerator are observed, its best qualities are preserved on average for the first five days.
Before slicing, keep the knife in hot water for a few minutes - this will prevent the cheese from crumbling.
Fresh cheese is sometimes subjected to heat treatment (smoking), after which it acquires an exquisite taste and can be stored for up to a year.
Despite the high salt content, feta cheese is a very healthy product that allows you to preserve teeth, velvety skin, ease digestion, improve health and prolong youth.
Photo: www.gianteagle.com
Brynza is a well-known pickled cheese originally from Eastern Europe. Good Brynza has a fresh, salty, sour-milk taste, a dense, brittle consistency, and the dough contains a small number of small, irregularly shaped eyes. This cheese is an indispensable ingredient for various salads and baking fillings, as well as for traditional Eastern European dishes (for example, khachapuri with feta cheese, mamalyga, etc.). In dishes, it is better to combine cheese with vegetables rather than with meat ingredients. In fact, Brynza can be considered an analogue of Greek Feta, but they differ quite greatly in taste and consistency. Brynza is saltier and denser than Feta. Brynza is traditionally made from cow's or sheep's milk, and Feta is made from goat's and/or sheep's milk. Also, Brynza is a more dietary cheese, and when prepared with a vegetable enzyme, it is excellent for the diet of vegetarians. Translated from Romanian, the word "brynza" means... simply "cheese". From this alone you can guess that making real delicious Brynza at home will not be particularly difficult. So let's roll up our sleeves and get started =)Ingredients
8 l.
whole cow, goat or sheep milk
pasteurized
1/4 tsp.
mesophilic aroma-forming powder crops (eg Flora Danica)
1/2 tsp.
liquid rennet (veal)
dissolve in 50ml water temperature 30-35ºС
or rennet in another form, in dosage, according to the directions on the package
use animal rennet for this recipe
1 ½ tsp. (8 ml.)
calcium chloride, solution 10%
dissolve in 50ml water at room temperature
or follow the dosage indicated by the manufacturer of the drug on the packaging
maximum application dose - 2 g of dry calcium chloride per 10 liters of milk
1/4 tsp.
[optional] lipase
dissolve in 50 ml of water at room temperature 20 minutes before application
Brine No. 1 (salting) - 20%
1 kg.
medium sea salt
not iodized
4 l.
boiled water
1 tbsp.
calcium chloride, solution 33%
1 tsp.
white vinegar
Brine No. 2 (ripening) - 16%
500 g.
medium sea salt
not iodized
2.5 l.
purified cheese whey
Brine No. 3 (storage) - 12%
350 g.
medium sea salt
not iodized
2.6 l.
purified cheese whey or boiled water
After cooking you will receive: 1 kg Brynza cheese
Equipment
10 l.
pot
enameled or stainless steel
15 l.
pot
for water bath
food thermometer
long knife
for slicing curds
skimmer
wooden or plastic
2 pcs. for 700 g.
cheese mold
with perforations, suitable for ricotta basket
for 3 l.
container for salting and storage with lid
you can use a regular three-liter jar
cheese cloth
gauze or muslin
Sterilize all equipment before making cheese. You can wash it and pour boiling water over it
Brynza preparation schedule (from start to finish of preparation)
First day:
- 2.5 hours to prepare cheese grains (active phase)
- 4-5 hours for pressing (passive phase)
- 1 hour to cool the cheese (active phase)
Subsequent days:
- 4-6 days for salting
- minimum 2 weeks for maturation
Step-by-step recipe for making Brynza
- Heat the milk in a water bath to 30°C, stirring slowly so that it heats evenly. While heating, pour calcium chloride into the milk and mix thoroughly. When the temperature is reached, turn off the heat.
- Turn off the heat. Sprinkle the starter powder (and lipase if using) onto the surface of the milk and let it soak up the moisture for 3 minutes. Then mix, trying to distribute the powder throughout the entire volume of milk. Cover with a lid and leave the milk for 40-60 minutes.
- Pour the enzyme dissolved in water and mix it well throughout the entire volume of milk.
- Cover the pan with a lid and leave for 45 minutes for the milk to curdle.
[optional] To accurately determine the required clotting time and obtain a clot of the desired consistency and calculate the coagulation time using the formula K = F * M (multiplier = 3, F - flocculation time in minutes). After the calculation, leave the clot alone for the remaining number of minutes. - Swipe. If the clot is not dense enough, leave for another 10-15 minutes.
- Cut the curd into cubes with a side of 1.5-2 cm. Slowly stir the curd grain over the next 15-20 minutes, gradually raising the temperature to 33 ° C. During this time, it should decrease in size and release more whey.
- Leave the curds to sit for 5 minutes until they settle to the bottom of the pan. After this, remove most of the whey (so that it only slightly covers the top layer of the curd grain). Part of the whey must be saved for the brine in which the cheese will ripen. Drain it into a container, prepare brine No. 2 (proportions in ingredients) and put it in the refrigerator (the whey must first be cleared of protein, for example, by making ricotta from it).
- Place the molds on a drainage container and use a slotted spoon to transfer the cheese grains into them (it is not necessary to use a drainage cloth here). Leave to self-press at room temperature for 4-5 hours. In the first 30 minutes, turn the cheese in the molds every 10 minutes, then once every half hour. To obtain a denser cheese consistency, you can additionally press it with a small weight - up to 1.5 kg per mold.
- While the cheese is pressing, prepare brine No. 1 (proportions are indicated in the ingredients) and place it in the refrigerator to cool.
- After pressing, the cheese must be cooled to brine temperature. To do this, you need to build a cold chamber: put a metal grid on legs (for example, from a microwave) in a large saucepan, put a cutting board on it, and cheese on top. Pour cold water at 8-10°C into the bottom of the pan. The cheese should lie in this chamber for an hour, during which time every 20 minutes we turn the cheese over and pour cold water at a temperature of 8-10°C.
- When the cheese has cooled well, place it in a container with brine, in which it will float and salt for 4-6 days. Sprinkle coarse salt on top of the cheese. Turn the cheese in the brine 2 times a day. The container with brine must be placed in a chamber with a temperature of 10-12° C.
- After salting, the cheese must be placed in a weaker brine of 14-18%, made on the basis of whey (brine No. 2). The cheese should ripen in this brine for 13-15 days.
- After ripening in brine, the cheese can be eaten immediately, or placed in brine for storage (concentration 12-13%, brine No. 3). Cheese cheese is stored in containers (or in oak barrels, depending on volume). Place the pieces of cheese into the container as tightly as possible, and pour 12% salt brine into the remaining voids. Close the lid tightly on top. If whey-based brine is used, then such cheese will have a softer consistency and a sour taste. In this brine, cheese can be stored for another month in the refrigerator (at a temperature of 6-8 ° C).
Brynza is one of the most popular cheeses in our country, since the mechanism for preparing such a product at home allows you to produce it even yourself, if you have constant access to fresh milk. The finished cheese is good for your own consumption, for treating friends and acquaintances, and even for sale.
The only downside is that you can’t just store Brynza in the refrigerator for a long time: at least the cheese won’t be able to be kept fresh, and in the worst case, the product will become completely unfit for food. At the same time, knowledgeable people know how to store this fermented milk product for a very long time, and we will also try to figure out how to do this.
Long-term storage technique
Of course, if you bought just a little Brynza in the store, love it or have a clear idea of how to use it in the shortest possible time, then there is no need to invent anything, because the shelf life of the product in the refrigerator can reach several days. If the expected storage duration should be much longer, you will have to resort to one of four methods.
- The simplest thing is use brine, in which feta cheese is sometimes sold. This liquid is used in the process of making cheese, but due to its high salinity, it can store the product for a long time. If you use the same brine in which the cheese was prepared, then you don’t have to be afraid that the product will acquire some new flavor, because the taste in this case is identical. Some manufacturers sell Brynza directly with this brine, and if it is available, it should not be poured out under any circumstances - this is where we will store the fermented milk product. Combined with constant refrigeration, the quality of the cheese will remain high for several weeks.
By the way, the brine itself can be used as an unusual drink or as an additive to various dishes.
- If there is no “factory” brine, and the shelf life of the product needs to be extended from several days to two weeks, you can store Brynza in the same refrigerator, but packaged very carefully. For such purposes, the cheese head is usually wrapped in food foil and placed in a pan, which must be covered with a lid on top. For storage, you should choose a strictly enameled pan, while unprotected metal or any other utensil materials will not work.
- If the brine was not sold complete with the head, but you want to preserve the cheese for many months, you will have to prepare this brine yourself, especially since there is nothing complicated in this task. The exact proportion, interestingly, differs in different sources; apparently, it depends on the taste preferences of the authors, but for the first time you shouldn’t be particularly stingy with salt: you need to put at least a glass on a three-liter jar. The brine should be concentrated, because most of the volume of the dish will still be occupied by cheese, not liquid.
The head can be stored in concentrated brine even for six months, but for this the liquid will have to be changed monthly. You need to understand that during the settling process, Brynza takes part of the salt from the brine for itself, so each subsequent time the brine’s salinity is slightly reduced. For the same reason, you should not keep Brynza in brine for too long, since the concentration of salt in the cheese may ultimately turn out to be excessive.
By the way, only glass containers with a tight-fitting lid are suitable for soaking in brine.
You can find a lot of controversy on the Internet about whether it is possible to freeze Brynza, and the answer really depends only on how you plan to use it after defrosting. The fact is that due to the cold, the cheese loses its structure, and as a result, an attempt to cut it will end with it crumbling into small pieces. Many also claim that after freezing, Brynza partially loses its original taste.
However, if you need the product not for sandwiches or for a cheese plate, but, say, for a salad or any hot dish, then this will not be a particular problem. At the same time, the cheese is stored in the freezer not unpacked, but tightly wrapped in cling film or a plastic bag, otherwise the head may become completely deformed, and then it will have to be scraped off the walls.
Common Mistakes
As often happens, even a slight deviation from a proven recipe can result in the sudden failure of the plan. And complete ignorance of the recipe all the more often leads to the fact that the result is unsuccessful. They usually don’t buy much cheese, and therefore long-term storage is often required if a person suddenly leaves somewhere.
Let's take a closer look at how you can't store Brynza.
- Many people, afraid of oversalting the product, store cheese not in brine, but in ordinary boiled water. There is no logic in this: not only will plain water not protect against microorganisms, but the salts will also be washed out of the head, due to which it will become tasteless. It is worth soaking Brynza in plain water only if it has turned out to be excessively salty and needs to be “restored”, but this technique has nothing to do with long-term storage.
- Consumers in recommendations about wrapping Brynza in cling film and placing it in a pan with a lid is often limited to only the first step, although in fact the second is much more important: it’s better with a lid and without film than with film but without a lid. The fact is that the lid allows the cheese head to retain its moisture for as long as possible, and without it the product will simply dry out and become stale. A spoiled product can theoretically be saved by cutting off the hardened rind, but this already promises a loss in volume, and in the worst case, especially if the piece of cheese was small, a complete loss of the product.
- Plastic containers, as well as metal ones without an enameled surface, is unsuitable for storing Brynza by any of the described methods. True, the situation with plastic is somewhat simpler: cheese can be stored even in such a container, but it is better to limit the period of stay there as much as possible, otherwise a characteristic unpleasant aftertaste will appear.
To learn how to store cheese in brine, watch the video below.
Brynza is one of the types of cheeses, for which sheep's milk is mainly used as a base. The distinctive features of this type of cheese include the requirements for maintaining a high moisture content, since when the cheese dries, its taste deteriorates. Accordingly, when storing feta cheese at home, in order to ensure the longest period of suitability for food, it will be necessary to keep this product in a sealed package.
How to properly store cheese at home
The main requirement for storing feta cheese at home is to ensure the tightness of the packaging with such cheese. The best option is to place this product in a plastic container with a tight-fitting lid. This method will ensure that the cheese is kept in its own brine, which will preserve all the taste and beneficial substances of this product for the longest possible period of time.
It should also be noted that another requirement for storing feta cheese is to ensure a low temperature, so the best option is to keep this product in the refrigerator.
Bryndza cheese is stored at 6-8 °C. The shelf life of feta cheese in brine is up to 60 days, and without it the time is reduced to 30. If you do not have a special sealed container, you can store feta cheese in the refrigerator, tightly wrapping it in cling film.
How to store cow cheese
In fact, the requirements regarding how to store cow cheese will not differ from the above conditions, since despite certain differences in manufacturing technology due to differences in the chemical composition of milk (for example, pasteurized milk is used to prepare cow cheese), the final product is quite similar for cheese made from other types of raw materials. Moreover, it can be stored in almost the same way as other pickled cheeses.
The list of requirements regarding how to properly store cow cheese can be formulated as follows:
- Store in a cool place without the presence of products with a strong odor nearby.
- Keep the cheese in an airtight container to prevent drying out. If you don’t have a plastic container, you can use a metal enamel container, or wrap the cheese in cling film or foil.
- If you purchase a product whose packaging does not contain a special brine, to increase the shelf life, you can prepare such a composition yourself by dissolving 20 g of salt in 100 ml of water.
How to store sheep cheese
The storage conditions for this type of cheese are no different from those given above for a product whose raw material is cow's milk.
How to store homemade cheese
Proper storage of homemade cheese also does not differ significantly from the method of storing this product made in an industrial environment.
Similar to the above types, it is advisable to store homemade cheese in the refrigerator at a temperature of 6 to 8 ° C.
At the same time, in the case of homemade cheese, the period of its suitability for food will significantly depend on the characteristics of the process of its preparation. In particular, if the salt saturation is sufficiently high, the storage period under the above conditions can be up to six months.
Brynza is a favorite cheese in various cuisines around the world. It is served as an independent product, as well as as an addition to meat and vegetable dishes, as a filling for baked goods. It can also be eaten as a savory dessert with tea and coffee. To keep your purchase fresh and tasty, you need to know how to store cheese.
Traditionally, this soft cheese was made only from sheep's milk, but now cow's and goat's milk are also used for this purpose. Sourdough and calcium chloride are added to it, then soaked in brine for at least 25 days. The duration of this process determines how salty the cheese becomes.
Cheese contains a lot of calcium: just 110 g of product per day will help meet the body's daily needs.
The cheese is quite salty, so you should not consume it in large quantities, especially for those who have diseases of the digestive system.
The fermented milk product is sold with or without added liquid in vacuum packaging. When purchasing, inspect it carefully and pay attention to its integrity. If there is damage, the cheese is most likely starting to dry out. It is better to buy cheese in brine, so it will be easier to store. An important criterion is the percentage of fat content, optimally if it is about 50. The better the quality of the product, the longer it can be stored at home.
The color of the cheese should be white or slightly yellowish, it is quite dense in consistency, has no voids, does not crumble or crumble. Before slicing, warm the knife blade under hot water, this will help you get nice, even pieces of cheese.
Cold storage
Where and how to store cheese? In order for a healthy product at home to remain tasty and fresh for a long time, you need to keep the cheese in the refrigerator and preferably in brine. If you bought cheese in liquid, after opening, pour it into a glass container, put the cheese inside and close tightly with a nylon lid.
If you wish, you can make the brine yourself; to do this, prepare a 20% saline solution.
The cheese will absorb the required amount of salt, and this will extend its shelf life by several months.
Before using, simply soak the piece in fresh water.
If storing without liquid, wrap the cheese in foil to prevent drying out. Do not use cling film; the cheese must breathe. To maintain moisture, you can wrap the piece in a damp cloth. In the absence of preservatives, the cheese will become unusable in a week.
How to use cheese that is not fresh
If you need to save a large amount of cheese from spoilage, use the freezer. Place the whole piece there and cut from it as needed. This, of course, is an extreme method, the taste will suffer, but the product will be suitable for preparing various dishes.
It is better to add stale cheese to baked goods. Heat treatment will kill harmful bacteria, but only calcium will be left in it.
Important
- If you need to make the cheese less salty, soak it in boiled water or milk for two to three hours before eating.
- It is undesirable to store fermented milk products in boiled water for a long time; they will absorb excess moisture and begin to disintegrate.
- A raw egg should not sink in the product storage solution. If it floats, the salt concentration is optimal.
- In the refrigerator, keep the cheese in the back as close to the freezer as possible.
The shelf life of cheese is quite short. It takes a little effort to prolong it at home, but when purchasing it is better to limit yourself to a small piece and be happy to add cheese to your favorite dishes.
Your little brownie