OK so with lessons learned I thought it was time to try again. I got out the recipe I wanted to use (the same one more or less -- see last cheese) but now understanding a little more (thanks to you all) I made some changes and got to work.
I warmed the milk slowly to 90 degrees, added the Annetto and Calcium Chloride and then added the culture. I let the milk sit for 1 1/2 hours to ripen.
My first mistake here, I think, was that I did not make sure it remained 88-90 degrees during this phase and it dropped to about 70 in the center near the top. I beleive this may be an error (help).
I then added the rennet (stirred about 2-3 minutes which I now beleive is too long after reading more here) and let the milk sit again.
Again I did not keep it at 90 degrees but left it at 70ish...was this a mistake?
After more then two hours I could not get a clean break though it was close. I gave up, cut the curds and waited a little.
I then began to warm it up -- thinking it was not working well enough I added HOT water to the sink (using the sink bath method) and OOOPS! It was at 100 in less then 5 minutes
Lesson: stirring makes the cheese absorb the heat evenly so DO NOT add too hot a water to the bath. Take it SLOW.
So I'm going to go ahead and continue to see what happens but know I've already goofed up pretty much.
Curds are cut and have sunk.
They look kinda right....thoughts?
Thanks!
Erik