March 13, 2010

Today's results: yogurt, Irish potato brown bread, an almost-spanikopita (to be completed tomorrow), and Monterey Jack cheese.

We should have made this cheese for our first hard cheese instead of the gouda we made last November. This was easy, if hugely time consuming. There's a lot of waiting that happens in cheese-making. Bring the milk to temperature, add something, wait, repeat. Cut curds, wait, repeat.

Monterey Jack curds

Curds and whey.

Monterey Jack curds

Drained and salted curds. We got 6 quarts and 3 pints of whey out of this. (Local people: want some?)

Monterey Jack curds

And this is where it's at right now, pressing at 10 lbs, more or less, for 12 hours. Technically, this means I need to get up at 4:30am and move the cheese to the next step (air drying); I wonder how much damage I'll do if I wait until a reasonable hour?

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