This past weekend I mentioned here on the blog and on my
facebook page that I was going to buy milk and make cheese. As promised I did it and took pictures for you all. This is by no means a tutorial just a look at the process. Normally for soft cheese, butter, milk and yogurt making I use my local raw milk source. But for this I went with some organic pasteurized but not homogenized milk from the store.
This is the milk being heated and then sitting around with the starter culture.
Now I have the whole pot in a sink of hot water to raise the temperature and shrink the curds.
Here are the curds minus the whey.
Here are the curds wrapped in cheese cloth awaitng their first pressing.
This is what the cheese looked like for the next twelve hours.
The cheese looks like this now only a little smaller. It's been air drying for two days. I'll give it another two days and then wax it and put it in my make shift "musty cave" of a mini fridge. This is the shortest, easiest hard cheese you can make. It only takes 4 weeks to age. I'm so curious to see what comes out a month from now. :)
Oh, wow...that looks so delicious!! And kinda easy, too? My brother-in-law is/was a cheesemaker...the little factory he worked for got bought up by a huge company (of course) and now he doesn't make cheese anymore. I keep telling him that I'm going to host a workshop in my big farm kitchen where he can teach us how to do it! This has re-inspired me! Thanks for a neat post.
ReplyDeleteHow exciting!! Can't wait to hear how it turns out.
ReplyDeleteKN- How fun that would be. I think taking a course from someone who really knows the ins and outs of what you are attempting is always good. I think about offering classes to local moms about slow food all the time. Maybe one day when the girls are older it will happen.
ReplyDeleteOooh, I can't wait to see how this come out, too. Homemade cheese...swoon.
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