Friday, May 9, 2014

Say Cheese!

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook might have seen pictures of us making cheese this week.  It started as a science lesson for the kids, but I ended up enjoying it more than they did =)

Making mozzarella cheese is surprisingly easy.  All you need are milk, citric acid, rennet and salt.  We used this cheese making kit.

I had the kids carefully read the directions before we started and then they got to measure out how much citric acid and rennet we needed.  Then it was combined and they had to carefully watch the thermometer.


Since we were using raw milk (please, no comments on the safety of raw milk.) we had to watch the temperature a bit closer and let it sit longer for the *magic* to happen.

Once the curds had set, they had to be cut (you can imagine the laughter when the boys said they had to cut the cheese...), rinsed and then heated again.  After this, we added salt and herbs.


And then chilled it to set.  Once we started eating it, we realized that we hadn't heated it enough the second time around, because it was more like cheese curds (it even squeaked!) than mozzarella.  But, it didn't take away from the flavor at all =)

Now, I've ordered different cultures to try making other types of cheese.  Looks like I'll have to make another milk run...



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