After years of telling family and friends of my dream of one day making my own cheese, that day has finally arrived. My various cheese making products arrived a short time ago in the mail.
The Process:
heating the milk and adding the rennet...
straining the curds from the whey...
the final product... Mozzarella!
2nd final by-product... Ricotta (made from the whey)
My third attempt at cheese making was Monterey Jack. For this one I use an actual bacterial culture for innoculatind the warm milk. It was a long process (over 4 hours) until the curds were ready to be pressed.
my hand-made cheese press
The pressing took another 12 hours, then air-drying another 3 days. Once it was dry enough we sealed it in paraffin wax. Ideally, it was to age for 2-3 months like this. Unfortunately at about 1 month, we could see mold growing under the wax. I peeled the wax off and scraped off the mold, washed it and let it air dry for a while longer. The mold got worse and we deemed the project a failure. C'est dommage. Back to the drawing board.
It got a lot moldier after this.
