experimentation + pain

This is me after getting my widom teeth extracted. The pain after the surgery was not too bad. It was the infection that set in a couple of days later that sent me running to fill my T3 prescription.




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.