Farmers Cheese or Country Cheese as we call it, is a fresh cheese. It is fast to make for a cheese, and if you do not eat it all immediately it will sit in your fridge for about a week. I have used it on pizzas, in grilled cheese, sandwiches and salads. And as a snack. 
You will need some good fresh live yogurt. Buy a plain greek yoghurt or make your own. Here is what I do.
Homemade Yogurt
In the morning, bring 1 gallon of fresh raw milk just to the boil. You can use pasteurised too. Just avoid ULTRA pasteurised. Let those first few bubbles break then take it off the flame. You may cool it quickly in a water bath or cool it slowly depending on how tangy you want it. Once it is cooled to hand hot (about 95F) add 1/4 cup of yogurt, either from your last batch or I buy a pot of Danon plain greek yogurt every now and then to start afresh. I let this sit for the day, until it is thick and smells good. If you like it thick like I do. Then drain it through a cheesecloth lined colander, lift the yogurt filled cloth, twist. tie and hang on a hook for the night to finish draining. I read this method on the blog Chef in Disguise. It is simple and always works. If it is a hot day I put it on the cold concrete floor of the cellar cave and let it drain down there. Or pop it in the fridge.
When I take it out of the muslin, I usually whisk it into lovely thick creaminess and store in the fridge. Remember to keep a cup aside for your next batch.
Now for the Country Farmers Cheese.
Heat two gallons of milk or in my case cool two gallons of milk to 95F, add 1 cup of yogurt and sit for 15 minutes. Make sure to add some milk to the yoghurt first and whip it into a slurry then mix this into the warm milk. I forgot to do this yesterday and the first batch curdled and became pig food. 
The pigs eat like kings when I am making cheese. Especially when I fail. They ate the Monterey Jack yesterday! It grew more mold than I have ever seen in the three years I have been making cheeses. Maybe I will stick to cheddar and parmesan and this lovely farmers cheese.
Anyway. I was discouraged so I went out into the garden to moan a bit and pulled a couple of onions to make a quick jar of fresh picked onions. 
But pickled onions are sad without cheese.
So I took another two gallons of milk out of the fridge and started again. (Lucky I have a COW!) I heated it to the 95F, I mixed in the yogurt smoothly, then added 1/2 a tablet of rennet (or 1/2 a teaspoon of liquid rennet), dissolved in 1/4 cup of cold water. Stirred thoroughly but gently and set it aside for 30 minutes. No curdling -phew.
My favourite indication of a clean break, meaning everything is going according to plan, is when the curd pulls away from the edge of the pot. And the whole thing can spin like hot porridge in a pool of cold milk. Then you push at it with your finger and if it slices cleanly you are good to go. 
You will be able to get a big knife and slice the curd into little 1 inch pieces. Like lots and lots of sugar cubes. Sometimes I cut the curds with a big whisk. Using the whisk as a knife. Be gentle. Let this sit for 5 minutes. The curds will drop out of sight.
Now, ever so slowly, cook the curds, stirring and lifting gently as you go so they do not mat. Over 30 minutes raise the temperature of the curds and whey to 120 F. The slow cooking and stirring will allow the curd to release all that pesky whey as it is cooking.
Once cooked, tip your hot curds into a colander lined in cheesecloth (or my trusty pillowcase). Rub in a teaspoon of salt (or not), lift , tie the cloth together, hang and drain until it stops dripping (about an hour).
Line a container with a fresh cloth and push your curds in. Then set a one pound weight on top. (I use an old glass power line insulator) Pop this in the fridge to set. Eat as soon as you like. It will keep for a week in the fridge, less if unsalted. 
Feed the cooled whey to your pigs and chickens. Or make ricotta cheese. 
Good morning. I will make a couple of these a week for after work snacks. One more thing I do not have to buy at the supermarket.
Soon I should only need to shop once a month. Won’t that be a joy.
Have a lovely day.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
67 responses to “How to make Fresh Homemade Yogurt and Farmers Cheese”
I learn so much when I visit your blog! It’s always the first one I look for and I’m never disappointed. 🙂
Loved the cheese class. I also love the peacock feather in the last picture, so pretty. Think I’m going to make the pickled onions for our camping trip next week. They made my mouth water just looking at them.
~April
They would be great for camping!! c
Well, I probably should have said camping like this: “camping”. I’m not sure if it still qualifies as camping if we have running water, air conditioning, and a bed to sleep in. Ha! We have a camping trailer that makes it very nice. But we did have many, many, years where we slept in a tent on the ground. I am SO over that! 😉
Oh My Goodness, My mouth is literally watering especially after reading the last two posts!!
Wonderful, home-made products, and I’m sure they get better with every attempt. I especially like the glass insulator, used as a weight. It’s quite an attractive object, and just the sort of thing I would do.
So glad you got over your moaning and back into the kitchen! What a lovely looking cheese.. it’s quite incredible that these simple steps can transform ingredients into something completely different. I love you yoghurt recipe, so much simpler than my machine made kind! So much yumminess in one post 🙂 xoxo Smidge
Imgot a bit of cross contamination when making my Camembert and Edam the same day, Edam is showing signs of a white fur! I’m going to leave it and see what happens though.
I’d like to try the yoghurt, but it think I’ll pass on the cheese. I don’t have pigs.
I’ll try the yogurt and let you know how it goes. Can’t wait. Well, I can…but I AM very enthusiastic about it.
you won’t have to wait long, a day maybe! c
Your cheese slices have me salivating! Yum!
Thank you so much for posting things like this. As a farmer starting out, it’s encouraging to see that my hopes and dreams really can be part of normal life.
I’m late for the party…thanks for the cheese and yoghurt recipe. I’m anxious to learn how since our first goat is about four months from kidding and giving us milk. We live in cow country, but the local farmers use biosolids on their field, so I don’t buy their milk (the reason I decided to raise goats for milk).
I watched a lady on YouTube make mozzarella with vinegar (no rennet). It looked easy. I’m surprised the cheese can be consumed immediately. I always thought all cheese had to be stored for a period to ‘cure’.
Thanks again. I’m checking out a few of your other recipes, too.
Fresh cheese is my favourite cheese now, i make it weekly! I completely understand growing your own milk I love having it fresh! c
I thought to make muzzerella one needs to place curds ( I believe our farmers cheese super drained and weighted) into hot salted water and stretched or formed into a ball by turning it inside out on itself to make the grain of the cheese and obtain that typical chewy texture? I have searched and searched for a recipe on making muzzerella from farmers cheese but it appears one needs a curd made from rennet? Gosh , I swore years back I saw a video on using farmers cheese to make muzzerella
Thanks for the post! It helps to know how a recipe can go wrong, and the pictures were super helpful.
So, I’m making what I thought was skyr, but now am thinking might turn out to be yogurt, or farmers cheese, or… I have no idea. Thoughts are welcome from more expert dairy culturers
I wanted to make skyr. The recipes I found sounded just like the yogurt I’ve made before. Heat the milk over 180F, cool to 110F, add a dollop of skyr and rennet (the new part), let it sit for 8-12 hours in a warm place. I did all that, but realized that all of my skyr was flavored, not plain, I added plain regular yogurt. (Anyway, my “skyr” is Siggi’s, which is extra strained Greek yogurt, not actual skyr). I plan to strain the acidic whey out with a cheesecloth lined colander.
So what will I end up with in 8 hours? Yogurt? Yogurt Jello? Skyr? An abomination?
some kind of changeling i think.. I use Danon FULL FAT yoghurt as a starter.. but have never used or made skyr.. sounds interesting though – do let me know what you end up with! maybe a very nice drink.. c