Made my first cheese last night!

[Frumunda]

Since I don't have any rennet yet,I figured I'd try what looked like the simplest cheese recipe here,Queso Blanco!

Welcome to my kitchen!I feel the best way to enjoy any project is to get comfortable! (note sock feet,Duff Beer 'jammy bottoms and Molly Hatchet t-shirt!)



Ok,let's get started!Here,I'm watching the thermometer and stirring the milk.



Now the milk is hot enough,so I add the vinegar!



It instanly made big,lumpy curds!This stuff really works!



Here's what it looked like after the cooking was done:



Here,I'm ladling the cooked curds into my collander to drain.



Here's all the curds in the collander,it's looking good!



Ok,so I scorched the milk a little it wasn't ALL perfect!But,hey,not too bad for my first attempt!Note for other first timers:Stir the milk constanly or you will scorch it to the bottom of the pot!I picked all this scorched crud out of the curds,I'm sure it wouldn't have been harmful to eat,but more for the purpose of having a good looking finished product!



Then I had another problem,I didn't have anywhere to hang my curds so they could dry!As luck would have it,photography is also a hobby of mine,and I noticed my tripod had a small hook on the bottom!Since I was finished with the tripod at this stage of the little project,I tied the corners of my cheese cloth together and hung the curds from the tripod!Problem solved!



This morning,when I woke up,I put the dried curds in a bowl,and added some garlic salt and some herbs and mixed it all up thoroughly for some garlic and herb cheese!



Then,I packed it all down in a small container to go into the fridge!



Here's what it looked like from the top after I packed it all down nice and tight.



I tasted it,and despite going a little crazy with the garlic salt and putting a little too much in it,it was actually edible,so I'd still call it a success!So I goofed a couple of times,hey,that's why they call it learning!Anyways,I hope you enjoyed the pics of my first cheese making adventure!I'm gonna do some lemon cheese tonight!I'm pretty sure it'll go even more smoothly after the lessons learned from the first run!

[Zinger]

Comgrats on a successful first attempt at gettin' cheesy. The pics are a super way of explaining your process. Thanks for the post and welcome to the forum.

Z

[thebelgianpanda]

Can you hear the soft, gentle song of the cheese press calling yet?

[Frumunda]

Thanks Z! and I am getting ready to build myself a cheese press very soon!I'm going to order some rennet as well so I can try my hand at some of the other cheeses here!

[Cheese Head]

Road Rash, great records and snaps, turned out well, salt maybe, but can never have too much garlic! Nice pyjamas!

[Frumunda]

maybe I should just use a little bit of salt and garlic powder then instead of garlic salt,cause it was the really salty taste that threw it off.I like lots of garlic too!

[wharris]

Nice pics.  Looks good!   

[Frumunda]

Thanks!It's pretty decent I guess.I got the herbs right,but it's a bit salty though.I forgot to mention I got a yield of 2 lbs 9 3/4 oz!

[thebelgianpanda]

One thing that was mentioned in the halloumi thread is if it is too salty, you can try letting it rest in milk for a couple of hours.  Kind of an anti-brine

[Frumunda]

Oh,cool!I'll try that and see if it takes a bit of the saltiness out of it!Thanks!

[DeejayDebi]

Sure looks pretty RR! Nice job!

[Frumunda]

You know,this cheese is still in the fridge.It's been a month,and it's still good!

[DeejayDebi]

Sometimes it even gets beter with age ...

[Tea]

Congrats Road Rash that looks great.  Great pics too.

[Cartierusm]

Good work. Try doing the double boiler next time it will make life much simpler. All you need is a pot within another pot. Goodwill is a great place to find stuff.