Four Quarts of Cheap Half & Half

[Boofer]

I find myself with a bit of a dilemma. Yesterday, while shopping at my local market, I spied some "Manager's Special" quarts of Half & Half (half milk & half cream). It is not ultra-pasteurized so I grabbed up four quarts, figuring I would somehow put it to good use. The pull date was for today which is the reason for the lowered price.

I am considering Mozzarella, Cream Cheese, or possibly a Brie. I have never done any of those. I would rather like to see something good come from this surprise find. For the Brie, I have penicillium candidum but not geo.

Any suggestions or recommendations?  Time is of the essence.

-Boofer-

[Cheese Head]

Hi Boofer, time is ticking.

That's a lot of cream.

Cream cheese and a double or would that be triple cream brie are good ideas, another would be a very high butterfat Stilton.

BTW, if you have too much, Sailor said here that he successfully freezes Cream Cheese (& Moz).

[Boofer]

Wow, what a response! Thanks, John.

So I put this off until today, the drop-dead date. I decided I would finally try to make culture-acidified mozzarella.

The recipe on this forum has some issues. I worked between Ricki's and the one from 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes. I guess I was puzzled why Ricki would include lipase in her recipe. Does real mozzarella possess that characteristic? Ricki also doesn't use CACL2. Hmmm.

I did my best to adhere to the core theory of the recipes. What I ended up with was something other than mozzarella. In that regard I join a long line of would-be mozz makers who somehow failed to reach their ultimate goal.

As you can see from the pics, my curds were quite a bit smaller than I have ever experienced before.  I thought I'd dozed off while I was making ricotta. 

I took the weenie-sized curds and nuked them for a bit, stirred them, nuked them, stirred them...what the...?

I decided at that point that I had just perfected my recipe for cream cheese. Drum roll, Maestro! Ta-da! 

Yes, I know...I know, cream cheese uses meso culture not thermo, but I hadn't started out to make cream cheese. Mozz asks for thermo. Eh, I'll let it sit in the fridge overnight, get some bagels tomorrow and be able to more critically judge my success at my Plan B. 

I probably won't get any responses to this post. I think this thread is in a back alley of the forum. You know, poor lighting...no one wants to venture in.

-Boofer-

[Boofer]

More pics.

-Boofer-

[DeejayDebi]

It actually looks very good Boofer. You stil can try to recover and make mozzarella but you'll have to nuke and kneed at least another 6 to 8 times judgeing but the look of it. The good part ids it can wait until tomorrow and still work.

[Boofer]

I think I have too much fat for mozz. If I try to nuke it some more, would it really melt and transform into a solid malleable glob? Right now it is just like cream cheese, but not smooth. At this point, it is an experiment and I really would like to see if the mozz is possible.

-Boofer-