With fifteen cheeses under my belt, I no longer consider myself a beginner, so I attempted a difficult cheese — traditional cheddar. After the normal culturing, cutting the curd, and cooking it slowly, there is a lengthy process that I think is called cheddaring where the curds are left in a pot kept at 100F by sitting in a water bath. After they have spent two hours in the pot, with regular turning, they are ripped into grape-sized pieces. Sure enough!
It took a while to get them all ripped up. My arms thought that the chunks got tougher as time went on. After adding some salt, it went into the press. The first turning didn't look promising. Hopefully it will mold together tomorrow. It'll sit in the press for a day and a half — there goes my plans for making a colby tomorrow.
I'm worried that it won't knit together, another disaster. But, I'm also worried that it will turn out so good that we'll be compelled to make a lot more.
Yesterday I made a romano for the first time. These hard italian cheeses are made with skim milk. After being in the press overnight, it spent the day soaking in a brine solution. I put a plate on top to push it down into the water.
I'm trying to get lots of cheese made before Christmas comes. There will be several days when I won't be able to make cheese and the milk will quickly overwhelm the frig.
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