Ok, here's the story.
I am a total noob so don't be too harsh. But I tried to make a hard cheese last night, the recipe called for 1 gallon of milk, i used 2% from the store, warmed it up to 70F, and added the 3 Tbs of buttermilk it called for to get things started. it said to leave it at room temp "over night" no specific time... So when i got to it in the morning I essentially had a gallon of thick buttermilk.
I have heard that once it has clabbered you'll never get a clean break, but what the heck I'm a noob, so I tried any way.
I warmed it to 86F and added the rennet and waited...........
nothing after an hour, waited another hour and figured, "yup, they must be right... no clean break after it thickens."
So i came across another recipe for Buttermilk cheese in the book "Cheesemaking made easy" I figured "I essentially have a gallon of buttermilk, lets not make it a total loss" It says to heat the buttermilk to 160F, stirring now and then. The curds will separate from the whey. "which it never really did till it cooled, it looked like fluffy clouds" Then pour curds into cheesecloth and hang to drain.
now all of this to say, now i got Fairly decent tasting, but dry and grainy soft cheese...
1. Is there a way to get rid off the graininess?
2. What did I do wrong?
Please help this noooooob!
dkskinn.