How to Make Cheese

I've just made my last batch of cheese for the year.  Cheese making is something that I do only in the "poor weather" months in that it is both fun and tedious - there is a lot of waiting around.  When the weather is nice in the spring/summer, I don't want to be forced to stay indoors.
Cheese making is pretty easy and relatively cheap to do.  If someone were interested in making cheese, I would suggest getting one of the good books out there, learn the basics and then throw them away for a while.  While trying to get the "feel" right for the cheese and when to do certain steps, practice is what is needed.  Adhering strictly to times/temperatures/ingredients will only lead to frustration.  Additionally, most recipes expect a certain ingredient list to be used which may not always be practical.  A book is helpful for understanding the theory however.
Equipment:  You don't really need much.

• Double boiler.  Basically two pots, one inside the other.
• Normal knives/spoons/etc. that every kitchen likely has.  Also a colander and a couple pans.
• A cheese mold (not the fungus kind) to hold the cheese in a shape while it is being pressed.  This can be as simple as two buckets or very elaborate.  I've had several generations - and keep changing what I'm using for this.
• Weight for cheese mold.  I use old barbel weights.  I bought a rather expensive (for what it was) press for cheese, but it did not work as advertised.  I still use it as the mold, but use external weights as I believe this is MUCH more consistent.

Ingredients:  Most can be bought at the supermarket or are available through a cheese making supply company online:

• Milk.  Like many people, I have access to store bought milk (I recently found a source for goats milk - yeah!).  Avoid ultra-pasteurized milk.
• Cream.  Pump the fat up in the cheese - it is better.
• Bacteria.  I have found the thermophillic easier to work with.  The direct set powder is cheap enough for what I do with it.
• Rennet.  This is the enzyme that sets the milk.  I like the calf's rennet - a little goes a long way.
• Cheese cloth.  Washing this stuff is a pain so I use the plastic disposable stuff.  I think it separates easier from the cheese as well.
• Non-iodized salt.  You need salt and iodine adds a funny taste.
• Calcium Chloride.  This helps set store bought milk.
• Distilled water to dilute the rennet - chlorine kills rennet.

Notice I do not list amounts of any of the above.  I make one gallon's milk worth of cheese at a time.  Follow the instructions that come with your cheese-specific ingredients (bacteria, rennet, etc.) as to how much to use.  I find that adding about double the rennet required helps set store bought milk.

Before starting, clean and sanitize the area.  Since the cheese will be air dried for a time, you want to be reasonably sure that nothing else will be growing on it.  Rinse everything a lot before starting.

Mix milk, cream calcium chloride and thermophillic bacteria in a double boiler.  Heat to 90F.

Let the mixture sit for around a half an hour to let the bacteria come alive and begin to ripen the milk.
Dilute the rennet in a half cup of water and then add to the milk.  Stir vigorously until mixed.  LEAVE IT ALONE FOR ONE HOUR!!!!  Let the milk set, don't go back and try to remix or check on it.

Use a long knife to cut the curd into strips in a "cross-hatch" pattern.  VERY SLOWLY heat the curd to 110F.  This should take about a half an hour.  Stir very gently only occasionally as it comes up to temperature.

Cook the curd at 110F for about an hour.  Stir very gently a couple times during this time.  You now should have curd chunks floating in some odd-looking liquid.

Strain the cheese curds to get rid of the whey.  I've never had much luck saving the whey from store-bought milk for anything.  Drain for a few minutes, but don't let the curd cool too much at this point.

Dump the curds back into your pot and add a heavy tablespoon of salt.  Stir the curds and put the cheese cloth into the mold.  Spoon and pour the curd into the mold.  Do this in the sink since whey will continue to be expelled, especially after the addition of the salt.

Now use weights to press the curd.  The point of this is to press out the liquid to leave solid cheese.  Start with a little weight.

Flip the cheese and add weight a few times over the course of a couple days.  I like the final weight to be about 30 pounds for about one and a half days.  

After a couple days of pressing, remove the cheese from the mold and take off the cheese cloth.  If the cheese is rock hard, it was pressed too much.  If it is still sloppy, it wasn't pressed enough (or possibly wasn't cooked long enough in the pot).

After the cheese has been taken from the cheese cloth, salt the outside of it with non-iodized salt and let air dry for a few days.  Flip the cheese every other day to help it dry evenly.  Once the cheese starts to harden on the edges, it can be eaten, or waxed for aging.  Use a cheese wax as it is easy to remove to eat it.  It will age very slowly at refrigerator temperatures.

And, that is it.  It really is that easy to make cheese.
I almost gave up on this until I got rid of the recipes and just began to work with it.
Have fun, but remember that there is a time commitment to doing this.  So if the weather is nice and you can't stand being inside in the  summer, wait for winter.

As for me, I'll get ready to do this again in about seven months.

Ten Days

By company rules I have to use last years vacation by the end of April.  I have six days left which means ten days off in a row.  It isn't atypical to have a few days off at the end of April, but this many is too many. I'm not complaining about the vacation and I need the time off, but the vacation now is a result of improper use of one of the most valuable commodities I have; time, vacation.

I'm looking forward to the time off and have some stuff to do around the house.  I'm glad I won't have to be at work for over a week and deal with the idiot consultants.  I'm worried what the idiot consultants will do in my absence.  What is the goal of a successful consultant?  The next client.  Short term wins to show management at the expense of long term sustainability.  Ugh - But enough about work, I've got ten days to not think about this.

Several previous years when I've had a few days at the end of April, I'd go on a short trip somewhere.  I might try to do that, but I'm not really sure where this year.  The the distressing things about this is it points to poor use of my vacation last year.  This is partially the result of selling the house last year and the complication it brought.  Ten years ago, I felt sorry for people who couldn't use all their vacation.  I do have to be honest with myself and say that I have been feeling a little morose about the situation.

A previous boss once said that time is like your virginity.  Once it is gone, it is gone.  A different previous boss once commented on seeing a group of young men hanging out in front of the store across the street all day how he wished he could buy their time, since it was being squandered.
So this time isn't going to be wasted, just used differently.  Here's hoping for a few nice days.  A few things completed around the house and a few new ideas.  Time for reflection and anticipation in the same breath.

And, some time to look forward to (and maybe plan for) the next real vacation!

10 Years of Walking Dogs

I recently realized that it was about ten years ago that I started walking one of my dogs almost once a day.  There were a number of small reasons I started doing this, but it quickly became one of the most enjoyable parts of my day.  It has remained a very important and fun thing to do.

My walks started out modest at best, but pretty quickly grew to a minimum of about 3 miles and often twice that many.  When the worst of the weather hits, it might not happen or if I get home from work very late, but it is rare that I don't at least get out for a short walk.  Back of the envelope calculations suggest that I've walked approximately 12000 miles in this time (3.5+ miles x 6.5+ days a week, 50 weeks a year) and this is actually pretty conservative.  This is the equivalent of walking to Australia or to and from Tierra del Fuego.

I've thought about taking up bike riding on occasion but bikes can be really annoying on some of the narrow roads around where I live.  I'd miss the slower pace...and the dogs.  I've never considered running, since I've never seen a jogger smiling.  Walking a fast pace is good low impact exercise.  More important, it is a contemplative time to reflect and unwind.  Many of life's (and work) problems have been put into perspective or even solved on a long walk.  When I can't walk for one reason or another, I miss the mental health it helps with.

The dogs absolutely love the walks as well.  This is good because a fat ugly old man walking down a rural road is creepy.  A man walking a dog is quaint.  Sometimes, the dogs are tangential to the need to get out for a while however.  The dogs have changed over the last ten years.  Ten years ago it Sammy, Dixie and Soda.  Jackson joined soon afterwards.  Sammy and Dixie are walking elsewhere, but Fairbanks is now part of the paw pad crew.  Spring and fall walks are always the longest - and sometimes there are multiple walks in a day.  Winter can be brutal and the dogs often resist on broiling humid days in the summer, preferring a shady spot to any physical movement at all.  At times, they give up mid walk, sometimes a long distance from home.  We always get home; I do worry about the older ones in the summer and they only walk for short distances.

Since moving, I can no longer walk through the nature preserve near the old house.  I do miss that, as it was always an interesting place to walk through.  Driving there, or anywhere now to walk would just be completely wrong.  I continue to be fascinated by amphibians and other things in the water areas as I walk. At times, I've seen what seems like just about every type of native animal to where I live.

Ten years and counting.  I hope I'll be able to walk back from Australia some day - at least figuratively.  I think I'll start on that now.

Six Month Review

I've been writing this now for about six months.  In the corporate world where I work, this would be the appropriate time for a review.  This is not the corporate world, but it is time for a review.
Predictably, the amount of these posts that  have been viewed is pretty paltry.  That is fine, this is more for me and my alias than anyone else.  Some of the posts have been pretty lame, but I've yet to see a blog where that isn't the case.  At least I recognize it.  Happily, I've avoided politics to a large extent.  While I used to have a real interest in politics and still follow pretty closely what is going on, the topic is too mundane.  My interest is more in the humor and hypocritical behavior and "both sides" as my personal leanings are far right on some issues, far left on others.  With that, I would love to see a presidential race between Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich.  The country would be better served by a race between John Breaux and Bill Richardson.

What  has been surprising over the last six months has been how difficult it was on some days (weeks) to find something that I want to pen.  There is always something going on, but mundane chores and work consume most of my (and likely our) lives.  As this has gone on, I wonder how difficult it is for Leonard Pitts to find something to write about for every column.  He writes politics though, which is cheating...and fleeting.

When I started writing this, my mind was consumed with the events surrounding the sale of the old house.  It has been surprising how much that has had a continued affect.  The liberation of selling it has allowed significantly more enjoyment of the new house and life in general, even though most of the improvements I may do are pretty low priority right now.  I would never have expected simply moving a few miles could have this significant effect on my general outlook for life.  Work is overall the least enjoyable it has been with too much work, too much responsibility and a lack of resources.  We are nearly half way through a multi-week project with these idiot consultants.  I have never had so little respect for people in that field as I do right now.  There is just a total lack of understanding of the reality we work in every day.

What I have liked writing about the most, is things currently happening, and how they relate and remind me of things from my past.  There are a few posts in the near future I'm already mentally writing that I am looking forward to.

For now, I'm going to continue to try to write about once a week.  I saw a news story on TV a while ago where research was done on writing within the US public.  Without remembering specifics, a huge percentage of the population said they had a book they wanted to write, while only a very small amount actually do.  I would add, or can.  Having a story, or something to say is easy.  Every toddler has a story.  Forming words in a way that others want to read is a gift and a skill.  I claim neither, but practice make habit (practice almost never makes perfect, and only rarely improvement).  I can only hope that habit makes better.