Suggest a recipe for a 'melting cheese' for a beginner?

[mzgarden]

Ok, I want to progress with my cheesemaking but there's a ton of recipes out there.  I have fresh goat milk every day.  I have been making farmer's cheese, paneer etc. for quite a while.  I'd like a recipe that would make a cheese we could grate or slice and melt like you would for grilled cheese sandwich or in casseroles.  Not looking to make mozzarella this time around.

I have on hand - milk, veggie rennet, mild lipase and mesophilic (direct set) culture and of course vinegar and lemon juice.

Can you suggest/point me to a beginner's type recipe for a cheese with a bit of tang I could use as a melting cheese?

Thanks

[feather]

I'd suggest cheddar curds but I've only worked with cow's milk.  www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTAnJ4gOWZE
It is essentially making cheddar, as you can take the salted milled curds and press them for a block/round of cheddar. If you let the curds sit out after making them, at room temperature for 24 hours, they develop more flavor or tang.

[feather]

Melty cheese has been very important to us in making cheese. So there are many approaches to understanding it. For instance, using a red/orange 'footy' type of bacteria, called ?? corneo...something, lends itself to breaking down the proteins/fats during aging making the orange or footy type cheeses more melty than a meso or thermo culture. But, as I've found understanding the nuts and bolts of why cheese melts is quite difficult, and even though I've studied organic chemistry it kind of goes over my head. I don't have the patience to 'get it'. So I look for a more practical solution around that.

What you might like is more of an American cheese, or a velvetta like cheese when it comes to texture.  Taste on the other hand, can be much better than velvetta by using 3 kinds of cheese. It melts beautifully.

So to start, with a sauce, then cook it without scorching it, until all the extra liquid is gone, and you have a sauce that turns into a solid when it is cooled. Last night I made a nacho sauce with 3 cheeses (any combination will do, cheddar, brick, parm is nice). Three cheeses give it quite a nice flavor nothing as bland as velvetta. I used this recipe: modernistcuisine.com/recipes/melty-queso-dip/

It uses sodium citrate, but I've found that citric acid combined with baking soda also gives good results.

Combine the sodium citrate (or citric acid with baking soda) in a liquid, then the shredded or grated cheese, whisking and heating to get your excellent sauce. As redfish says, you get better results by grating the cheese. If you cook it down, put it in a plastic container and refrigerate it you get a solid block of velvetta that tastes better than velvetta which makes excellent dip when melted back down or sliced for a grilled cheese sandwich.

Just thinking on 'why does this work?' Think of fondue, a liquidy melted cheese, fondue is cheese melted often times in an acidic wine, usually a white wine, somehow the acid helps the cheese break down and the corn starch will help keep it stable.

On the other end of the spectrum, almost a solid meltable cheese, noodle around the internet and you will find recipes for making your own velvetta. Mostly those recipes are cheese and a hot liquid (often acidic) are blended in a blender, then refrigerated. I've tried those recipes and they work too.

I just find it easier to make the sauce and cook it down, then refrigerate it. It takes about 20 minutes to make.

The negative aspect of making a 'velvetta like cheese' is that it only lasts 5 days in the refrigerator and it begins to mold.

So, this isn't how to make a melty cheese--by making a cheese. This is how to make a cheese, into a melty processed cheese for the sake of a casserole or sandwich.

[spacecase0]

I think feather is correct.
sodium citrate is your answer
here is another link (if you need one) lifehacker.com/5951463/make-cheeses-easier-to-melt-with-sodium-citrate

I have tried it before,
a tad bit of water in the bottom of a pan, like not even enough to cover the entire bottom
low heat, add a small amount of sodium citrate (1/8 tsp ?, maybe 1/16 ?) and dissolve it in the water.
then use a cheese grater and slowly add the cheese while stirring it
the sodium ions replace the calcium ions in the cheese, and that is it's trick.
it melts well and remelts well
it seemed to work on all the cheese types I tried, but I did not try it on hard types.

[feather]

spacecase0, the kitchen becomes a food lab.
I used hard cheeses and it works equally well. I love my cheese sauces and everyone here loves them too. We eat all kinds of cheese sauces, mostly not healthy things like mac & cheese.