Cheese-making 101

Last night, I had planned to write a blog about our cheese-making adventure yesterday, but when I arrived home my mom had written my blog.   Tonight I will give you cheese-making and photos to help make you hungry; please try not to envy me quite yet.

In a large pitcher Lynn, my sister and law, and I poured all of the containers of milk to measure our yield.  Measuring at 3/4 of a gallon, we were quite pleased to expect nearly a pound of cheese!  I sampled each container of milk before pouring it in to the gallon pitcher to make sure they all had uniform flavor and were not spoiled.  Who am I fooling, I tasted them mostly because I like goat's milk.

Once in the pitcher we poured the milk in to the large dutch oven and placed a candy thermometer in to measure the temperature.  Once it hit 190 degrees we removed it from the heat to cool.

Cooking to 190 degrees

Cooling

Once it hits 100 degrees you are supposed to pour lemon juice in to curdle the milk.  

add lemon juice

 Following the curdling you are supposed to strain and then season the cheese.

Strain the curdles to remove the whey.

season to taste

FAIL!

That is right folks, EPIC FAIL!  We, well, I decided to add the salt before the the lemon juice to "season my cheese" and it turns out that is a big NO NO.  Nearly a gallon of milk is now wasted.  I was very sad, but I will try it again.  Maybe next time I will actually follow the instructions.  Maybe.  Lynn was still supportive even though I ruined our whole cheese-making extravaganza.  On a side note, I'm not sure where the orange spots came from, but I think I'm to blame.

I am thankful for the fun cheese-making adventure even if we did fail(Day 134).  We will do it better next time!  Goodnight Friends.