Back in 2007, I thought I'd have a go at making cheese so I did! The photos have been tucked away in an old Facebook album so I thought I'd put it on here to share.
I've just lifted the pics and comments straight from my Facebook album so without further ado..do:
Ingredient List:
Yorkshires Finest Full Cream Milk. The only milk I've been able to find which isn't homogenised. What is homogenised you may ask? It means it's shit to make cheese with!
What else is there? Citric Acid which increases the acidity in the milk. you could use yoghurt, or starter culture and other such stuff but citric acid is easier :o) If you haven't got citric acid you could use the juice of a few lemons instead although it depends how lemony you like your cheese!
There's also DVI culture which you could use to culture the milk by itself without the citric acid but you'd need to leave it for ages so I just use a little for flaaaaavor.
And finally animal rennet. Made from the stomach linings of calves. Yum!
In goes the milk and 1.5 teaspoons of citric acid and a dab of DVI culture. Normally you would make a gallon at a time which is what most websites tell you to do, but the milk was expensive and I wanted to make sure it did the job first so I did about half a gallon.
Heat the milk to exactly 31.1 degrees centigrade at which point the flux capacitor will engage and.............
TBH keep it between 30-34 degrees and it's fine.
At this point add about a third of a teaspoon of the rennet and stir for about a minute
Stick the (makeshift) lid on and leave for about 15 minutes.
About 10 minutes in, you can see it starting to coagulate (separating the curds and whey)
About 15 minutes
You need to be able to get what they call a clean break, I sort of did but I should have left it about another 10-15 minutes as it made the next parts a lot harder than they should have been and I ended up with about a third of the cheese I should have but hey ho.
Chop up the curd with a knife and leave for a few mins stirring slowly.
Transfer the curd into a colander with cheesecloth in it. I did a gash job of this as I had a shit spoon and the stock pot made it difficult to get it out. In the end I just drained it all into the colander which broke up all the curds into a pike of cack as you'll see in the next picture.
mmm, nice
Let it drain for about 15 minutes.
I couldn't be arsed to wait so I tied it up and squeezed out the excess. Unfortunately because I'd broken up the curds so much and then squeezed so hard I madeabout two thirds of the curd stick to the cheesecloth and it was impossible to get off. Shit!
At this point, if you want to be old fashioned (and if you have solid curds, preferably left overnight and not broken up ones like I have) then you could use boiling water to cook the curd and turn it into chees, but I used the microwave as it's easier.
1 minute on high and using a fork and spoon I started to bring the cheese together. Sort of like a fondue :o)
Back into the microwave for another 30 seconds, then I picked up the cheese and kneaded it like you would bread, except in my hand not on a counter top. When it got a little cold I nuked it in the microwave for another 30 seconds.
I also added quite a lot of crushed salt to the cheese otherwise it would be very bland.
Then I formed it into the stadard mozzarella ball shape and stuck it in a tub of iced water (with a little salt in)
Ze finished Product
Done! (as Ramsey would say)
Attractive photo finish.
I had a cheese and ham sandwich shortly after this and it tasted good, needed more salt though.
So if I'd have done it right there would be probably about 2-3 mozzarella balls, but as I cut corners and I'm too impatient I only got one but who cares, it's f'kin cheese!
so there you go...all the way back from 2007
I'll see what else i can dig out from the last six months since I last posted!
