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GENERAL BOARDS => Introductions => Topic started by: Red Mountain on March 16, 2013, 07:07:36 PM

Title: Hi from Arizona.....
Post by: Red Mountain on March 16, 2013, 07:07:36 PM
Just want to say hello from Fountain Hills, Arizona, where the curds for my second try at stracchino are coagulating away at this very moment (I miscalculated the amount of vegetarian rennet in the first batch last week, and the cheese ended up rather like tofu--but cubed and marinated in olive oil with herbs and chile flakes, it wasn't half bad!).  The thread on stracchino begun by jasonmolinari has been incredibly helpful this time around.

I'm an ex-chef and baker, but at this point am most interested in creating English and British-style cheeses; Sage Derby, a real bandaged cheddar, and Stilton.  All in good time.

This is a great forum and I'm really glad to be here and learn from you all.

A clean break has been achieved! Woo hoo! Gotta dash!

Donna

Title: Re: Hi from Arizona.....
Post by: Tiarella on March 17, 2013, 11:30:18 AM
Hey, Donna!  Welcome to the forum and glad to have you!  Hope your make went well and look forward to stories and photos of your future makes too! 

You may find that living in a dry area may require some adjustments.  At least, here with dry air from wood heat, I have had to change things during makes.  drying a cheese after brining needs to happen in a container that prevents too rapid drying that leads to cracking. Doing cheeses in which curds are ladled soft and uncut into molds has been adjusted also.....I am avoiding using molds with too open a design of holes because they seem to initially drain faster but then stop before enough draining has happened whereas the molds with less holes did a more thorough drain. 

There are plenty of folks with experience to answer questions....thank goodness!   ;D
Title: Re: Hi from Arizona.....
Post by: Al Lewis on March 17, 2013, 02:55:46 PM
Welcome to the forum!!
Title: Re: Hi from Arizona.....
Post by: Red Mountain on March 17, 2013, 03:53:02 PM
Hi, Tiarella and Al--

Tiarella, thank you for the tips--that aspect of cheesemaking in AZ never occurred to me, and I suspect you've just saved me a lot of frustration and failed cheeses. I'll be brining the stracchino today, so I'll do just that with the drying, and see what happens. Getting the ambient kitchen temp below 79-80F between May and November is next to impossible, and between that and 5% humidity I'm sure I'll have lots of questions to come....

Hey Al, hi there--my husband and I have been checking out your NW Amber Ale thread, nice-looking brew! We've got a pale ale and a Brakspear's best bitter clone fermenting right now, to go with the cheeses, of course.  ;)

Thank you both for the welcome!

Donna
Title: Re: Hi from Arizona.....
Post by: Al Lewis on March 17, 2013, 03:58:54 PM
Sounds great!!  Must be tough finding a cool place to store it in Arizona. LOL  Hope you guys enjoy the forum as much as I have.  Lots of great knowledgeable people here willing to help.
Title: Re: Hi from Arizona.....
Post by: Tiarella on March 17, 2013, 07:43:38 PM
Donna, might make sense to start a thread in the Problems/Questions board titled something like "Need advice on Cheesemaking in very hot and dry climates" to see who has specific help that will really work for you.

I know there are forum members from the SW, also dry parts of Texas and Australia who will likely have great guidelines.  I don't think I have enough technical know how to be of enough help other than to alert you that it's sometimes an issue.  But I am glad to have hopefully prevented a cheese sad tale.   :D
Title: Re: Hi from Arizona.....
Post by: mickens08 on March 22, 2013, 09:30:07 AM
Hello everyone my name is donald and new also in this forum.
Title: Re: Hi from Arizona.....
Post by: Brie on March 24, 2013, 01:28:19 AM
Welcome--I live in Ahwatukee and have been making cheese for quite some time now and adjusted most of them to our climate--I have 3 caves that I have adjusted for cheese types and mold. Let me know if you need any help in this area.