My goals in life are simple: eat food I like and enjoy life. Most of my enjoyment involves food. And cheese. So, I decided to try cheese making and followed a recipe from CheeseMaking.com. The pictures made it easy to follow the process if you lacked some of the beginner confidence like I did. My first batch was okay (well, really it was sub par). It lacked some of the saltiness I crave and crumbled like Feta. It wasn't bad, but lacked the squeak and was dry. The other problem is my stove. The temperature is difficult to regulate being at it is electric and from 1958.
My second batch was a bit less dry and also lacked saltiness. So I added kosher salt to the batch after the whey was pressed. Still dry, but not as bad as the first batch.
Now for batch three: went to the farm to get non-homogonized milk (but it was pasteurized). I'm not 100% sure that this was the reason the curds came out better, but I'll roll with it. This time, I was quite tired of the temperature deregulation with my stove. Once I reached a temperature above 96 deg, I turned the stove off. Yes. I would turn it on to maintain 96 deg, then off again once I was above the recommended temp for ripening. I also simmered the curds for the lower end of the recommended time. Maybe cooking them too much dried the darn things out. I also added salt to the whey. I should have added more. There are a few suggestions for salting cheese through an interwebs search. Pros about this method: squeaky cheese, melty-ish cheese (seriously, it has the consistency of a good hispanic won't goo when you fry it cheese), and almost salted appropriately.
So, why bother with the whole cheese making thing? It is because I love Poutine. Fries. Cheese. Gravy. Toppings.
My next venture will be making a blue cheese. Because I need Buffalo Chicken Poutine.
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