First an intro....my name is Alicia. I live in the lovely state of Oregon. I like to think of myself as a domestic goddess, until I tried making farmhouse cheddar.
My first hard cheese. It was a failure.
I painstakingly followed directions in the Caroll book. I boiled all my equipment. Used the right size mold.
I dried the cheese to form a rind. Then I vacuum sealed it, instead of waxing it. I had read that you can use this method. The whey kept building up inside the bag, so I opened it, and dried it again, then I tried to wax it. The waxing was a total disaster. The cheese fell into the wax. Then i kept messing up the fresh wax, as I tried to coat it completely. Total disaster.
After aging over a month, the taste test proved to be a bitter one.
I am so disappointed.
How many of you failed in your first hard cheese experiment. I am so sad.