Since Jeff decided he was going to get into making beer, we saw that the website that he orders his ingredients from also sells cool things like kits for homemade cheese. So, of course, how could we pass up trying something like that out?! We chose the Mozzarella kit since it seemed the easiest.
Reading the instructions, it sounded pretty complicated, but after doing it, it was so easy. (I have to say that I pretty much just watched my dad and Jeff do all of the work. I was the photographer ;]. )
Here are a few pictures:
Preparing the ingredients
Heating 1 Gallon of Whole Milk
Watching the Curds and Whey separate
Pressing the Whey
Straining the Curds out of the pot
This is what Whey looks like... weird!
Pressing as much Whey out of the Curds as possible
Kneading the curds into a "dough" like consistancy. Alternating Kneading and heating to get it to the texture of Mozzarella Cheese.
Giving the Cheese an ice bath
Time to eat! It's already about 1/4 gone by the time I got a picture. This made a block of cheese about 4" x 4"... Can you believe that this is all you get from a whole gallon of milk?! I can now understand why good cheese is so expensive. It's really yummy on some salami and crackers. :)