Cream Cheese and Whey

This was one successful experiment.  We had an extra 1/2 gallon of raw milk last week and decided to make homemade cream cheese and whey with it.  I use the word "make" loosely, since there wasn't much effort involved on our part, other than waiting around for the milk to separate.

All we did was pour the milk into a clean, glass pitcher, cover it with a clean washcloth, and leave it on the countertop for a couple of days.  Once it separated into curds and whey, I lined a colander with clean muslin and set it on top of a stock pot.  I poured the pitcher contents into the colander and let it drain.

When it seemed like it stopped draining, I gathered the muslin and tied it into a little sack and hung that from a wooden spoon over the pot.  The whole contraption went into the fridge overnight to finish draining. 

 The next morning, we wound up with this:

 After I smoothed it out and pressed it in the bowl, we got about 2 cups of cream cheese and a quart of whey.  The cream cheese will keep for about a month in the fridge; the whey for up to 6 months.

Unbelievably easy!