And Now We're Back

Hello friends! Apologies for my longer than normal hiatus from Cheesy Street. June has been a crazy month with several weekend trips in and out of Connecticut. Now I'm back, and July should be much more cheese-focused. Since we last talked, I've experienced a few new things on the farm.

First off, a few weeks ago I cultured the milk. On my own. I know this doesn't sound like a big deal. But until now I've only observed or participated as a collateral player for the major steps...i.e., the steps that can screw up the entire batch. I helped add rennet and cultures before, but I never measured, calculated or diluted anything to the exact requirements of the recipe. I just poured it out of the bucket or cup. This time, I did it all the steps by myself (with a knowledgeable cheesemaker present in the room in case of disaster of course). I calculated the exact amount of cultures needed and tapped on the bags of powder until the exact number of grams fell into the cup. One overzealous tap and I would have ruined the entire cup full of cultures. One inaccurate calculation and the cheese wouldn't acidify correctly. I'm sure that the occasion was so harrowingly dramatic in my mind only. But still, I've never had 1500 pounds of milk depending on my precision before!

Second, I helped with the one of the few tasks in the aging cave that I hadn't experienced yet: poking holes in the blue cheese. I used a T-shaped tool -- it was a sharp metal poker with a manual corkscrew handle. In a nutshell, I had to stab each wheel of blue with a hole every half to quarter inch on the top, bottom, and sides. The stabbing allows oxygen inside the cheese so blue mold can develop. The more holes, the more oxygen, the more blue and the more flavor. The only thing of note here: it's a great arm workout and a swell way to get out aggression. It's actually pretty tiring and slow-going. The cheese doesn't give easily and my arms tired out after one shelf of cheese.

In other news, all this heavy lifting, stirring, and stabbing has easily replaced my weights work out. I'm not sure if I'm getting swoler, but I'm definitely not getting weaker. After I leave here, I might have to make some young wheels on my own. That way I can do some curls at home while they age.

I haven't had the opportunity to take many new pictures, so here's a few pictures of a baby cow. They're blurry, but you try keeping the camera still when you're jumping up and down and squealing at adorable baby animals. Oh hey baby cow, what's up...