Nice Balls

Success! Taking a sick day, playing the metal channel, and using a recipe graciously provided by the Cease (thanks for the pity), I was finally able to perform dairy alchemy, although the results were far from perfect. My mozz was lacking in stretchiness, possibly resulting from not bringing the whey up to temperature (which kept the curds somewhat brittle), but for now, I'll take it. The flavor is most certainly mozzarella, and I am most certainly a believer in the third time being the charm. Good luck in your own personal cheese misadventures.

Mozzarella, take two

The learning curve is steep. My hands are burned (seriously). I blew it once again. This time, I got the curds to set, but when I got to the heating and kneading process, my hands just couldn't take the heat, so I followed the advice of Ludacris (among others) and got out of the kitchen, leaving another blob that would not behave as promised. Lame.

Cheese Us, Christ!

After reading Kingsolver, I went ahead and ordered Ricki Carroll's 30-minute mozzarella and ricotta kit, and it turns out that things are much more difficult than ol' Barb lets on when it comes to cheesemaking. Either that, or I'm just a shitty cheesemaker (insert "but I'm good at cutting the cheese" joke here). Here are a few spots where I think I went wrong, just in case your cheesemaking curiosity has led you down the same path:

1. Patience (something I lack after 6 beers at 9pm on a Friday) is requisite. The whey will separate eventually. I don't think I gave it enough time.

2. After you slice the curd and go into the reheat process, be careful with the stirring. I did more harm than good by doing so.

3. Unless you're one of those people that can walk on hot coals, get a pair of gloves for the pulling process. The curd-cum-cheese is literally too hot to handle.

My end result wound up looking more like cottage cheese. The curds just wouldn't come together, so I trashed the whole batch. But I am not disheartened. A future post will document my imminent success. Until then, I'll have to be content as a schmo.