Monday, February 15, 2010

Cheese making

is a lot of work. I made two batches of mozzarella over the weekend and got the starter going for cheddar, colby, etc. The first batch of mozzarella didn't turn out very well; I got too anxious and didn't let the curd set long enough. It looked ok, but the flavor was weak. The second batch turned out much better—good flavor, with a good texture to the curds. We saved some of the curds out on the second batch to eat as curds; they were nice and squeaky.

My favorite part was cutting the curd and watching what looked like a solid mass begin to lose its liquid and shrink by about 80%. Debbie's favorite part was stretching the mozzarella; it's sort of like pulling taffy. Fun stuff! But, time consuming...