I had had enough of it! I've been hearing repeatedly, from many sources, of the glory of cheesemaking. How delicious it is to eat the quality cheese that comes from your own kitchen. How easy it is (at least for mozzarella). In fact, last week Sir William spent Tuesday with some friends, and I learned from them that his playmate (age 9, I believe) was now the one making the mozzarella in their family. So surely an adult could successfully navigate the tricky corners of home cheesemaking, right?
Nah! My first attempt turned out to be a total flop. The curds didn't really form, and it ended up being a big mess, and the chickens got the results. Hmmm ... at least one good result. The chickens received a delightful nutritional supplement. :)
I had followed very carefully (I thought) Ricki's 30 Minute Mozzarella Magic recipe. But it didn't work. I immediately came up with 3 possible theories as to why it failed.
1. The recipe was for 1 gallon of milk. I adjusted all ingredients proportionally and used 2 gallons, but perhaps I shouldn't have done this.
2. The milk was Ultra Pasteurized (UHT), and was, therefore, heat damaged to the degree that it would not form a curd. (This is a theory. I had no way of knowing what method of pasteurization was used.)
3. My rennet was the cheap, grocery store type rennet, and so it was not strong enough to effect the required coagulation (is that a correct term in cheesemaking?).
After the failure I obtained some feedback from KS Milkmaid. Based on my description of the problem, she ruled out theory #1, and also dismissed theory #2. Theory #2 could have been the cause, but #3 was, she said, much more likely. My rennet was not full strength rennet, and thus did not effectively create the curd. The other factor was: after giving it nearly twice the time called for in the recipe, I decided to make the best of it, and try to go ahead with the process. Milkmaid said that I quite possibly could have had better results had I waited. Apparently the good cheesemakers don't always follow the recipe, but rather, base their actions on what is actually happening with the milk. Had I given it more time than what the recipe called for, it might have worked, even despite cheap rennet.
When I told Milkmaid about the failure, her first response was, "Oh super!! The sign of a good cheese maker." That is heartening. If even the good ones messed up on their first attempt, and still do periodically, then hope remains for me. I can tell you one thing, though. I'm gonna use twice the amount of rennet that the recipe calls for ... until I get myself the "real" stuff. I want to learn from my mistake. (And, on the offhand chance that the problem was #2 - UHT pasteurized milk, I am going to redouble my efforts to get a raw milk source. A dairy cow has been on the agenda for 2007 for a couple of years, and I'm intent on speeding up my agrarian calendar from earlier projections. Nevertheless, I don't have the cow yet, so I'm looking for another source until then.)
And so ... I'm going to get another gallon of milk tonight. And try again. I'll let you know how it goes.
