Hi, everyone!. I'm new here.
I joined because I have a question about a little "experiment" I did a couple of days ago.
I don't (cannot) drink milk in its original form, so I only consume yogurt and aged cheeses. I've been making my own yogurt for several years. Sometimes from a Yogurmet starter, sometimes from store-bought yogurt, and sometimes from a previous batch as a starter. So I'm quite experienced at making yogurt, and it comes out perfect every time.
The other day I went to a restaurant, and one of the sides dishes was cottage cheese. Of course I didn't eat it there, but I brought it home thinking I might be able to "fix it" and make it edible. So here's what I did:
I took the about 3/4 cup of cottage cheese and rinsed it under running water. I was left with only the curds. Then I added one cup of whole milk, and blended the whole thing with a stick blender. Then I used the resulting thick liquid to make yogurt following my usual procedures (heated milk to 185 F, let cool down to 110, added 1 Tablespoon of previous batch of yogurt , put it in the yogurt maker, let incubate for 20 hours).
After the 20 hours, I looked at the results and saw that there was a lot of liquid at the top. I thought that something might have gone wrong, but it didn't smell bad, so I put it in the fridge as usual. The next day I took it out, and the liquid layer (about one inch deep) was still there on top. So I discarded the liquid, and was surprised to discover that the rest of it is not soft like yogurt. The best I can describe the consistency/texture is like a very dry creme cheese, or perhaps a dry farmers cheese (a.k.a. dry curd cottage cheese).
I tasted it, and it's quite tart and grainy - not smooth.
So my questions are:
WHAT did I make???
Why is it so grainy?
Do you think the yogurt bacteria from the starter did its job and cultured the whole thing?
Sorry for the long post, but I felt that I needed to be detailed in order to get helpful opinions.
Looking forward to your replies.