Hi I am new here and hail from New Zealand. I work part-time for a paraplegic friend who recently was given the offer of cheap fresh farm milk ( a scarce thing in Auckland city), so we discussed cheese-making to go along with the brewing he already does. Anyway, I did a whole heap of research - including this forum so when he rang and said I have 14 litres of fresh milk let's go - I thought I was ready hahaha. I had decided already to start out trying with some simple cheeses like a feta and halloumi before tackling anything else - so with ingredients and equipment in hand I began.
I think all would have been OK except for one fatal mistake. I had purchased a clip-on stainless steel thermometer - lovely thing. I was feeling rather confident carefully moving the thermometer between my two pots (one for halloumi, one for feta) while being aware of the sheer stupidity of trying two different cheeses at once as a first attempt.
All was going well - lipase organised for feta, rennet dissolving, meso culture all set to go in as I am merrily stirring away watching the temps. PING- the spoon hits the clip-on thermometer and it clangs to the floor
I thought all was lost but the thermometer seemed to keep working - YAY thought I - lucky. At this point the 4L of milk for the feta was at the desired 32 temp, the 8L for the halloumi had a little way to go. I added the culture to the feta and then noticed the temp seemed to have dropped, so I turned it up a little. The halloumi milk didn't seem to be coming up to temp so I kept stirring and keeping it on the heat. Anyway to cut a long story short, by the time I realised the thermometer really was broken the culture had been added to both, and at what I thought the appropriate time the rennet.
We then remembered Jon's brewing thermometer and used that - by this stage the milk in both pots was between 40-45C !!!!!
I have just left both pots that after over an hours wait have still not coagulated sitting until I go back tomorrow. I can only assume I have killed the meso culture and that this is a first and absolute disastor. Is there any way I can save this or turn it into something? Please help.