Canning cheese,,,,

in #homestead7 years ago (edited)

Yes, I said canning cheese, no, not cutting the cheese, canning cheese, LOL. Did you know you can actual can cheese for the winter months? There are a variety of ways to store cheese for later use but I am going to talk about canning it.

Image6.jpg image from google as are all the images in this post

It is possible to can both hard and soft cheese. And you can use either a boiling water bath or a pressure canner. Please make sure all your jars, lids and utensils are sterilized first. The boiling water bath method seems to have a little better taste and texture with the finished product than the pressure canner but both are acceptable.

Cut your cheese into cubes for easier melting and place in canning jars. I prefer wide mouth jars for ease in removing the cheese when I want to open a jar.

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Use whatever size jars you need to best suit your family's needs. I typically use 1/2 pint jars because I simply do not eat that much cheese at one time and I don't want to open a large jar and have it sit in the fridge for weeks before I eat it all. That sort of defeats the purpose, don't you think?

Place the jars in a shallow pan on the stove and fill with water to about half way up the jar being careful not to get water in the jars. If you do, then carefully drain the water out before proceeding. You don't want any water in your cheese!

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Turn the heat on very low. You do not want to cook or burn your cheese, just melt it. As it is melting and settling down in the jar add more cubes of cheese but be sure to leave 1/2 inch of head space. While you are melting the cheese you can pre-heat your canner. A hot ingredient goes into a hot canner and a cold ingredient into a cold canner.

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Now that they are all melted, wipe the rims clean from any food particles, place your lids and rings in the usual manner and put the prepared jars in your canner. Process 1/2 pints and pints for 30 minutes or quarts for 45 minutes in a boiling water bath. If you choose to use a pressure canner you need to process 1/2 pints and pints for 5 minutes and quarts for 10 minutes, using 10 lbs of pressure under 1000' elevation and 15 lbs of pressure over 1000'. Cool in a draft free area. Check to make sure each jar is sealed properly before moving to your storage pantry. Storage pantries should be in a cool and dark environment.

Cheese will re-firm up when cooled completely. Your hard cheeses will have just about the same texture as before as will your soft cheeses. Wide mouth jars makes it easier for removing from the jar and slicing.

Thank you for reading my blog!! If you found this article interesting and informative please up-vote and re-steem as it will help me out and others might want to see it too. :-) As always, if you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear them!! Happy Canning!!

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My Fridg has been of the fritz the past few day, lot of stuff got spoiled so this canning would really have come in handy. This canning was real popular before refrigerators were invented for sure. Thank you for keeping canning alive!

Thank you @robertchr!! Glad you stopped by. You never know when canned goods will come in handy!!

I remember my italian Grandmother had tons of jars of canned goods in the cellar, all from her garden. I miss her and those days.

My grandma died in 1955, I never knew her but my step-grandpa was still eating on her canned food 20 years later, LOL Said it was all good, even then. :-)

Wow! You could say in a way that your Grand mother was still caring, and looking after your Grand father for 20 years after she past by providing food that lasts a longtime. Wonderful!

Yeah, I think she was a pretty special woman. Family that were alive back during the depression told me how she fed a lot of the neighbors when they were out of food. And no one ever left her house hungry!!

Good idea, but not a fan of cheese myself - I know, I'm a total weirdo! xD

Another great post Alice : o)
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Thanks so much!! Maybe you should print these out for your wife. She might want to try some of them sometime for your homestead. :-)

she has already...lol ...told you she is onto it..she doesn't fool around when she want to do something... : o)

Good for her!!

Thanks for sharing. I love cheese, and I've always been interested in the idea of caning your own items. Very cool. :)

Thank you so much!! I have been working on a series of canning posts, hope you check them out!!

Thank you for sharing this about the cheese, I have yet to do so, but will remember this during my canning season. awesome post.

@sunscape feel free to print out the post if you want and any that I put on here. I am here to help in anyway I can. Thanks for stopping by my blog!!

Thank you so much, I appreciate that and look forward to more of your postings

@sunscape you are most welcome!!

Never seen this done before..great pot!