Eating her curds and whey. Speaking of curds and whey I’ve had a hankering for some cheese curds for the last few weeks and I finally did something about it this week. I made some. Well, I think I made some. A few days will tell if I was really successful.
I started by looking on the internet to find what it took and where I could find the ingredients. Cheese curd is just cheese that doesn’t get pressed so all you need to make basic cheese is milk, a starter culture, and rennet. Milk is not a problem and the starter culture can be made from buttermilk but rennet is not easy to find in Los Angeles. I spent several hours checking all the stores around here and striking out. I finally put “cheesemaking los angeles” into Google and it came back with with a link to a little store down on Ventura Blvd called Beer, Wine, and Cheesemaking supplies. I called and asked if they carried Rennet and was told “of course” so I drove over and picked some up.
Yesterday I had taken some buttermilk and let it sit out for 6 hours then froze it in ice cube trays for the mesophilic starter. Mesophilic starter is used to get the milk to become acidic. It works at low temperatures. There is also thermophylic starter which, you guessed it, works at higher temperatures.
At about 4pm today I started making my first batch. First I added the milk and starter into the mixing bowl from my Kitchen Aid and put that into a larger put to make a double boiler. I then heated it to around 86 degrees. Ok, it actually hit the high 90s before cooling a bit to 86. After sitting for 60 minutes I added the rennet. It only takes 1/4 tablet dissolved in a 1/4 cup of water for 1 gallon of milk.
After 15 minutes I checked to see if it was coagulating and it didn’t seem like it so I added another 1/4 tablet in some water. That was a mistake as I found it was really starting to coagulate but it fooled me. I broke the cured in the middle of the bowl trying to stir the rennet in so I think that might cause a problem with the curd not holding together well but we will see. Here’s what it looked like then.
I let it sit for another hour then “cut the curds” with a butter knife. It looked really good on the outside where I hadn’t stirred it but was kind of like cottage cheese in the middle. Here’s what the cut curd looked like. You can really see the “curds and whey”.
Then it was time to heat it to 102 degrees. I started that on the stove but moved it to the sink shortly after getting it above 94 degrees. I had some water in the sink at about 104 degrees so that brought it up the rest of the way to 102. Then it sat for another hour. If you’re counting this is 3 hours already.
At the end of that hour I poured it into a cheesecloth and drained it for about 40 minutes. Then I put it back into the pot, added salt, and mixed it in. After that I put it in this bowl lined with paper towels. 
It should be edible in 1 or 2 days. It needs to dry out a bit. I’ll report on the taste then.
