Feta Cheese!

I made some Feta Cheese this week. I used the recipe from http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/easyfetacheese.htm as well as one in a cheese book, "Home Cheese Making". They are pretty much the same, but the one in the book says to add the mesophilic starter an hour before adding the rennet and that is what I did. The one in the book also said to stir the curds for 20 min. (after the rennet was in for an hour.) I did not stire the curds for 20 min.-the one online did not say to stir for 20 min.

I did make one mistake. I was making it at night and then forgot to put it into a cheese cloth to drain the whey after the rennet was in for an hour-I left it in all night. Oops. So far cheese making seems pretty forgiving. (I did have one batch where the recipe was weird and called for an egg that I made and it was AWFUL-the chickens however had a feast.)

Here the Feta is in an olive oil, salt and oregano/basil brine. I did end up dumping most the olive oil brine out and adding a salt water brine as the cheese was not salty enough and had a very strong olive oil taste as I used extra virgin olive oil. That did the trick. The cheese tastes almost as good as some imported Greek goat Feta. (This is Jersey cow Feta.)
Here is the Feta after I drained it on paper towels.