Say cheese!

Wyatt got to visit a dairy cow and he learned to say, “Mooooooo!”

Justin and I decided it was about time to dabble a bit in cheese making so this weekend, we dove right on in. I stopped at a wine maker supply shop on my last trip to Atlanta and picked up some cheese cloth, citric acid, and rennet (a cheese enzyme). We used a simple recipe like the one here. After reading the recipe, we decided we didn’t even need the cheese cloth, but it will be great to have on hand for future use. Since I included the link to the recipe, I’m not putting step by step instructions, just some photos of the process.

Measuring and pouring out the milk

 

Adding the dissolved rennet

 

Cutting the curds

Draining the curds

Now the fun part: Stretch…

 

Stretch….

 

Stretch!

 

VOILA! 30 minutes later and you have fresh mozzarella!

I paid less than $10 for the materials, which will probably make 30-40 batches of cheese. Factor in a gallon of milk when you catch it on sale for $3 and you have great fresh inexpensive cheese. I think the next batch, I might work in some spices and have flavored mozzarella. Basil might be perfect!

Bonus: We made ricotta out of the remaining whey but it didn’t turn out to well, but whey is rich in protein so we poured it into a bowl for our chickens. They loved it!