I'm in Ur Kitchin, Makin Ur Curdz

While I let various iterations of the future of Cheesy Street steep in my brain during my Texas cheese limbo, I'm grasping at ways to stay motivated, connected, and focused. Shipping off to Waco one day a week to make cheese has alleviated some of my lethargy. At the very least, it's removed a large chunk of free time where I would be otherwise brooding on my what-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life confusion. Minus travel time, that still leaves 5 full days to play with. I'm slowly training myself to start every morning with some educational reading from the array of cheese books I've collected over time -- treating every morning as if I was studying for the bar exam again. This time the cheese bar. Reading chapters of The Cheese Primer is far less mindbendingly painful than practicing essay answers on the priority of claims under the Uniform Commercial Code.

Oh hai, can I offer you cheese?

My newest project is finally making cheese at home. This is usually a first step for hardcore cheese enthusiasts, and one that I should have tried sooner. I was one of only two students in my first cheese school class in Vermont who had never experimented making their own cheese in the kitchen. Almost a full year later, sure, I've made giant batches of cheese by recipe and under varying degrees of supervision. Yet, I've never attempted to muddle through the process on my own. Find and buy my own cultures. Research recipes. Figure out what can go wrong and why.

At first, I will be limited by a few things. Raw milk sale is legal in Texas. But Texas is big. Oh and I'm practically in Mexico. The dairies that sell raw milk aren't widespread or nearby. I've had enough of driving hours and hours to get what I need. At least at the outset, I will settle for store-bought, pasteurized, roughly-handled milk that will affect the success and flavor of the recipes. Maybe if I start to get better at this or more adventurous, I'll travel to a dairy farm to pick up some fresh milk and re-unite with my love for baby cows. Also, I don't have an aging cave. Most home cheesemakers can outfit a basic wine cooler or mini-fridge to serve the same purposes. I'm not ready to make that investment until I know I'm not ruining every batch or cooking up a disgusting mess. So, for now, I will primarily be making fresh cheeses, basic cheese curds, and yogurt.

Second cheese heats while
 first cheese presses

My first attempt was a batch of cheese curds that we could hopefully eat salted, seasoned or fried. The make process is very similar to what I've been describing to date, but on a smaller scale. I heat the milk in a stock pot on my stove, add cultures and rennet by teaspoons, cut the curd with a kitchen knife, stir, and drain the whey in a basic colander. No giant wheels of cheese here yet, so the hooped curds don't go into big molds. But I do press them lightly in the colander using a jug of milk (approximately 8 pounds) to further some whey release.

Kitchen cheesemaking is not as fast and easy as I assumed. First step is cleaning. Keeping my kitchen completely sanitary is futile. I try to wipe, clean and sanitize as much as possible. But my kitchen isn't the sterile haven of most cheese rooms. I'm not that concerned for the time being because I'm working with pasteurized milk in small private batches. For now, if anyone gets violently ill, it will be either me or Tad. My intestines are prepared for battle. Keeping the temperature in my stock pot constant is also much trickier than using a cheese vat. I'm constantly shifting the temperature settings on my electric burners. I imagine with practice I'll have a better idea of how the heating elements work. For now, the make involved ten-minute intervals between wide-eyed shrieks at the thermometer and violent back and forth flinging of the burner dial.

Hooping

So much destroyed potential

I'll blame the stove for its temperature spikes, but it was likely my own fault for stirring the curd a few minutes too long. Either because it was too hot or cooked for too long, the curd turned out rubbery and dry. My first bite was underwhelming and alarmingly squeaky. After I salted them, the curds saw their first use as topping on hot soup for dinner that night...and they didn't melt. What the hell kind of cheese doesn't melt?! They just stayed solid, squeaky balls. Softer. But unmoved in their refusal to melt. I like my cheese melted and completely covering other food items, so I was disappointed. During the make, the curd felt moist and perfect in my hands. Sometimes, however, a small mistake in the recipe is not very noticeable until the final product. I played it fast and loose with my milk and learned my lesson. I abandoned my first trial to the depths of the fridge. I think Tad used them once or twice and claimed they were delicious on salad. But I was unmoved in my refusal to accept them as a cheese I'd want to eat.

Thermophilic culture and calcium
chloride (helps store-bought milk coagulate)

Another issue for which I really can't be blamed is the flavor. Most flavor development in cheese comes from the starter cultures and their role in the aging process. Plus, I don't have the facilities to age anything. The cultures for the curd were a very basic thermophilic culture. Even my home mozzarella recipe that I would be trying soon simply uses citric acid, not bacterial cultures, to drop the pH. Neither will add much flavor to the final product. So, the cheese I make in the kitchen sort of just taste likes mildly sweet, cooked store-bought milk. When I get bolder with the cultures and rig up an aging apparatus, my cheese should take on a more interesting flavor.

Watchin some football,
hangin some cheese.

I moved on the next day to Fromage Blanc, which is a soft, tangy fresh cheese. It can be flavored as either savory or sweet and have uses comparable to a spreadable cream cheese. This cheese is not cooked. Also, it would require much longer make and draining times. Fromage blanc takes up to 12 hours to fully coagulate because there is less rennet activity. At that point, the curd is simply scooped, not cut. The ladled curd is placed in a butter muslin or cheese cloth to hang for another 6 to 12 hours, depending on desired moisture and consistency.

Fromage blanc curd

The fromage blanc was a success. I drained it for a little over 12 hours and periodically shifted and squeezed the bags to drain a little more moisture. The final product was a thick, tangy, creamy spread that I used on sandwiches with tomato, basil and pepper. For a sweeter version I spread it on angel food cake, topped with caramel and strawberries. In your face, failed cheese curd!

Next up in the kitchen: mozzarella and yogurt.