Benefits of using still warm Raw Milk for making cheese

 This summer I have been learning about natural cheese making with David Ashers awesome book (The Art of Natural Cheese Making )As luck would have it, I have access to warm  A-2 A-2 milk straight from the cow. This milk needs to cool down to 90 degrees instead of being warmed up. Of course per Montana law this milk/cheese is for my pets... (they share) I've been making cheddar cheese and now fast ricotta, with slow ricotta and mozzarella up next. First by using fresh raw milk I have no need of any artificial starter culture in my cheese, mama cow put hers it in for me. Next because this milk is still warm I can skip the whole first hour of cheese making (heating up to 90 degrees) and  jump ahead to dissolving and adding the rennet.  With fresh milk my curds form and stiffen in less than the suggested hour, so I save more time there. Never having tried making cheese with cold pasteurized milk I can only say that with warm raw milk my curds are shiny and smooth in short order and react exactly as they are supposed to. I did make a che'vre cheese from cold raw goats milk that came out very good. My milk comes from a jersey cow and has a very high cream content, it never gets a chance to separate out from the milk giving my cheeses a high fat content.  When making ricotta from my whey yesterday it was suggested depending on the quality of the milk that the curds could be hard to scoop up ... Not using fresh raw milk... as soon as the whey cooled for a few minutes , there they were , large clumps of ricotta curds floating. Very easy to scoop out. I'm having a blast learning about this, wish I was independently wealthy so I could buy my own cows stay home and just make cheese!  I can't try my cheddar cheese for another 50 days or so... I can hardly wait!  Recently I bought a wood/charcoal barbecue/smoker . I am also learning about smoking meats... and dreaming about cold smoking cheeses. Mmm fresh raw cheddar hickory smoked.... I could get used to this!  Bottom line, if you have access to fresh raw milk and want to try something new and fun , give cheese making a try ... like me, you might become addicted !  

google DIY cold smokers.  Lots of plans out there, soldering iron and a tin can are all you need.  

Funny how we try to overcomplicate everything, isn't it?  

You know I've always wondered how a guy could get away without all the purchased inputs for cheese making, and just recently stumbled onto the whole "raw milk already has all the bacteria present to make cheese" thing.  I'm really looking forward to trying more of this out and getting David Asher's book..really looks interesting.  Thanks for sharing the idea of using the fresh warm milk, just make sense doesn't it!