Cottage Cheese #2 With some Success

[ellenspn]

Well, I didn't have time to do a no cook cottage cheese so I grabbed my 200 EHCR book, took a deep breath and plunged in.

2 quarts 2% milk
1/2 packet Mad Millie culture (probably less than 1/2 packet)
4 drops CaCl
1/8 t vegetable rennet

Heated milk to 70 degrees and added everything, including the rennet.

Flocculation occurred at 28:52, not surprising as the time indicated was 2 hours.  My brain was still thinking of the flocculation time for Feta, not so I went the entire 2 hours.  In retrospect it was probably over-ripened.  Plus the room temperature  was around 80 deg.

After cutting and letting it rest for 5 minutes the stirring/heating began.  And so began my struggle to only raise 2 degrees every 3-4 minutes.  I ended up going up about 3 degrees every 2 minutes.  Smaller burner or just turn heat on and off? 

I stirred occasionally in the beginning, more steady near the end to keep it from matting.  My curd was obviously all sorts of sizes, navy bean ended up being on the large end of the scale.

Once it hit 115, I pulled it off the heat and ladled into a cheese cloth lined strainer.  I didn't have time to mess with ricotta (nor space in fridge) so I just let the whey drain off.  I then rinsed it in cold water.  It produced about a pound container of curd.

Here are some pictures I took.

[ellenspn]

It's not letting me post photos tonight...sigh....

[dthelmers]

Ellen,
I recently set up a cheese vat with a steam table pan in a plastic vat, with a hot water heater element to heat the water. The temperature rise is really easy to control, and if I overshoot my mark I can just add some cold water. It occurs to me that the same thing could be done for small batches by setting your pot into a dishpan or larger pot of water, and use one of those immersion heaters they sell for making tea to heat the water. Just put it in until you raise the temperature a degree, then take it out.

[ellenspn]

I was using a Caphalon fondue pot, which does not have easy access to the water pot.  I'm going to go back to my IKEA stock pots where I can access the water pot easier.

I am happy that this time I don't have lumps of mozzerlla

This morning it seems to have matted, but I expect that since I didn't add half and half.

[MrsKK]

Cottage cheese keeps better if you keep it "dry" - without adding any cream to it for storage.  When mine mats up in the fridge, I just gently break it apart, either with my hands or with a fork to rake it apart.

How's it taste?

[ellenspn]

Like salty cottage cheese 

Yup didn't get salt mixed in well enough.  Need to put in a bowl to mix before putting it in the storage container (or use a larger storage container).

The curd was very small, was it my heating or my cutting, not sure.