[Cheese] Cheese wax

[Dehaven James W]

Thanks to both of you.

Jack Schmidling <arf at mc.net> wrote:  JOHN MURREN wrote:

> What made it difficult was the fact that Carroll's
> recipe calls for two phases in the recipe where you are asked to
> raise the temp of the curd one degree a minute for a period of 15
> minutes (something like that ...) and then hold it at the new temp
> for 15 minutes.....

First of all, this or some variation of this is normal practice for all 
cheese making and is not unique to cottage cheese.

> There are no suggestions in the recipe as to how one goes about doing
> that (you DON'T do it on a stove top!).

Why not? I think you will find that a typical stove on the lowest 
setting will do something very close to that. I have to add a little 
heat now and then to get it to rise fast enough. If yours rises too 
fast, just turn it off now and then. The important thing is to keep 
stirring to distribute the heat evenly and do it in such a way as to not 
break up the curds excessively. After a few minutes, the curds firms up 
enough that it will stay together. After 10 minutes, you will struggle 
to keep them apart.

The important thing here is that you must heat it up slowly but the 
actual degrees per minute are not critical at all. I just set a timer 
for 30 minutes and fiddle around to arrive at my end point in about that 
amount of time. It's really no big deal at all but YOU must control the 
process. There is no way to do it while taking a nap.


>My cottage cheese came out harder and dryer than ideal, and
> frankly, it was almost identical to a farmer's cheese which I can
> tell you is a much easier cheese for a first timer anyway.

As a point of interest, farmer's cheese is simply cottage cheese that 
was drained longer and pressed a bit. If it was too dry, you drained it 
too much and lost too much moisture. Don't go by the numbers... every 
cheese is different. Drain it till it looks and feels the way you like it.

Hang in there. It will all fall into place with experience but I would 
stick with cottage cheese till you get it right, then do cheese curds 
and then press some curds. Work you way into it just be expanding the 
original process. That is the approach on my cheese making site.

js

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