So I used Ricki's Carrol's recipe below with my making notes in parentheses. It's 60 days old today and it's crumbly and dry - reminds me of a feta. It doesn't even really taste like cheese - too sharp. Any ideas what went wrong?
2 Gallons Dean's Whole Milk heated to 90F
1 packet mesophilic starter and maintained temp for 45 minutes (had difficulty keeping the temp on the stove)
1/2 tab rennet tab in 1/2 cup filtered water
let sit 45 minutes (with heat off)
cut curd
put pot in sink (to act as a double boiler) tried to slowly raise temp to 100F at 2 degree increments. (this went fast, maybe 20 minutes)
Let sit for 5 minutes (more like 15)
salted and broke up curd in a bowl (for some reason I used a cheese cloth lined colander)
packed in to lined mold ( had extra so I made another cheese, a smaller one)
pressed 10 lbs for 15 minutes, flipped, then 20 lbs for 12 hours, flipped then 20lbs for 12 more hours (more like 15)
dried for 5 days
waxed and stored for 60 days at about 60 degrees.
