Flowers and Cheddars

[mightyjesse]

sirzig brought me flowers on Friday. Purple tulips. How pretty!


They're sitting in my kitchen window, and they make me smile every time I look at them. I have spent a fair amount of time looking at them over the weekend, because of my new obsession with cheese making. On which note, I have some cheese-porn for you...


Here are the cheddar and the monterey jack I made last week. They're in the drying phase and almost ready to be waxed and aged. You can really see the difference in how tightly the curds got pressed. Both cheeses started out with roughly the same amount of curds, but the cheddar was pressed with 50 lbs and the monterey jack only got pressed with 8. Thus the jack is much "fluffier."


Hopefully my fancy black cheese wax gets here soon so I can carry out my plan to make goth cheeses... (The pun continues to grow: "My cheeses are clearly goth because after they are de-pressed, I paint them black and put them in my dank basement where they will hang out and try to be cool.") Someone also mentioned the idea of smoking, and while I think smoking my cheeses might be a fine idea, I haven't figured out how to work that into the extended pun.

The mozzarella and ginger ale I took to May Day seemed to go over rather well. This week, I'd like to make another cheddar - this time with craisins pressed in the curds. With Crown coming at me like a freight train, though, I'm not sure if I'll have the time.

Comments

[spot1111.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recipe. What about making this in a regular carboy with the gas-release on top to prevent explosions, then decanting it into pitchers for serving? The carboy could be even set up in a cooler, and then iced down to stop that fermentation and cool it down. I'm assuming they do something like that when they make poor mead or beer at events. I've heard of that being done, just never taken part in it. Does anyone here have experience?