Disasters in Cheesemaking

You remember that bumper sticker from the 80’s that said “She who dies with the most toys wins”? (uh, am I starting to show my age here?) Well I’ve always subscribed to the philosophy that “She who dies with the most experiences wins”! I just like to try new things, both for the fun and experience of it as well as for frugality’s sake. Sometimes it is great, and I learn something new. Sometimes it is a flop, and I learn something new anyway!

I’ve been toying around with the idea of simple cheesemaking for quite a while. I had posted some questions and saved some recipes for it over on the Frugal Living @ About.com bulletin boards about 7 months back. The every knowledgeable MichelleCarr had posted the recipes she uses.

Then a few weeks ago I had a gallon of milk that was ready to hit it’s “sell by date”. DH is convince that the milk goes bad the day it hits the “sell by” date, and won’t drink it. Since I didn’t want to throw it out (how unfrugal that would be) I decided to try to make some cheese.

I wanted to make the simplest thing that needed the least ingredients (many of Michelle’s recipes require rennet or buttermilk, or both), so I decided to try the recipe for “Curds and Whey” over at Hillbilly Housewife. This recipe basically uses only milk and vinegar, and is supposed to make a ricotta/cottage cheese type curd. I planned (notice the past tense) on making a lasagna with it.

I got everything together on the counter, reread the recipe, and I was ready to go. I was using regular milk rather than powdered instant, but figured as long as the liquid volume was the 12 cups the recipe called for I’d be ok.

I put the milk in a large non-reactive stainless steel pot and slowly warmed it to the 120 degrees.

Once the milk hit 120, I added the vinegar in and gave it a stir.

It clumped up, just like the recipe said, but the whey was not a “clear amber”. That was ok, the recipe said to let it sit for 10 min, so I did. At the end of the 10 min it still was milky. I couldn’t even see the spoon an 1/8th of an inch into it.

So I did what the directions said and added more vinegar and stirred gently. Then added more and stirred gently, and again, and again. I probably added an extra CUP of vinegar, a tablespoon or two at a time. It never did clear up, and the smell of warm milk and vinegar mixed in quantity is pretty nasty.

Finally I gave up and did the whole rinsing/squeezing step (I used an old pillowcase to squeeze it out with). I wound up with only about a cup of solids (the recipe said you should get 3-4 cups. And it smelled, and tasted vinegary.

Yuck.

It wound up going down the disposal (can’t compost milk products-I wonder if I can talk DH into worm composting. . . that’s a topic for another day)

Now I’m pretty sure that there was some operator error here somewhere, as I’ve tried quite a few of Miss Maggie’s recipes and had them all turn out excellently. Although I usually only post to the FrugalLiving@about.com bulletin boards, I did pop on over to the PrarieHomemaker (the boards associated with the Hillbillly Housewife-a nice group of folks over there) where I posted a question about it and got one response. She said when using fresh milk I should bring it to room temp, add the vinegar, then heat to 120 and take it off the heat for 10 min to let it curdle.

So although this attempt was a disaster, I will try it again, either with powdered milk as per the original directions, or by the method suggested above.

When I do, I’ll let you know. And I’m not too disappointed, after all-we can learn from our failures as well as successes.