more cheese...

[solipsistnation]

Made my first cheese with cultures in it, and also the first cheese that needs to be pressed.

It's pretty impressive, now, a little white wheel of stuff.



After heating, adding the culture and the rennet, and letting it sit and set up for half an hour, I had this-- nice thick curd that I cut up into little chunks and stirred around a bit.




I drained out the whey and broke up the curd mass, resulting in this:



A closeup!



Yum yum!

So, then it was packed into the cheese press and left overnight (in the wine cooler, the best-controlled environment in the house) under 20 pounds of weight, which, in the morning, produced this lovely little wheel of cheese:



...which I then inverted and put on a bamboo mat (not unlike a sushi-rolling mat! Well, okay, it _is_ a sushi-rolling mat.) for drying:



It's edible now, and tasted pretty good, although very young-cheesy. It's dry and solid and a little tangy. I'm debating aging it or just chopping it up and eating it and/or feeding it to people, since it seems this cheese you can age or not as you wish.

Anyway, yum!

Comments

[purly.livejournal.com]

What would you age it in? Wax?

Wow... you're so... amazing! I want some!

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you can coat it in wax or just put it in a temperature-controlled space or something... I suspect I'm just gonna eat this one, though.

Nonsense!

[etherial.livejournal.com]

Age it in chocolate!

[dharleenk.livejournal.com]

That, i must say, is supremely cool.

i remember making mini-cheese as a lab experiment in AP Biology in high school.... but i doubt we actually ate it.

[lil-laurel.livejournal.com]

we had more fun, we got to make booze in bio.

[dharleenk.livejournal.com]

nah, we made vodka in organic chemsitry as well. and glow sticks. heheh

[lil-laurel.livejournal.com]

ooooh glow sticks....

[yehoshua.livejournal.com]

What are you using in the way of rennet?

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Vegetable-based rennet of some sort. All vegetarian here, unless you object to eating scary bacteria. 8)

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

From here:

http://www.leeners.com/cheesesupply.html#Rennet

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Ask drdt if you can put a cheese cave in the basement. :)

[usagijer.livejournal.com]

Quick! BabyBell! To the Cheese Cave!


*doodoolee doodoolee dooo*

[stophittinyrslf.livejournal.com]

again, i must remark upon how this's probably the best idea i ever had for a christmas present for someone. not only do YOU like it, but you're using it too. which means that i get to eat delicious cheese on a regular basis! score!

[qedrakmar.livejournal.com]

So, when's the cheese tasting party?

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

3-6 months, depending on how long it takes for me to have enough for it to be worth having a tasting. 8)

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Nope. I'm going to try soft cheeses later, I think. This is a pretty generic hard cheese... Very fresh and curdy right now, but I hope it'll develop more character as it dries and ages...

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Farmer's cheese, dude. You know what's really good with that? Guava paste. Check your local Mexican market. Or also dulce de leche (you can make your own easily).