Our first Cheese-making run!

Sarah has been really excited about learning and actually making cheese. There is a man on YouTube who is Australian that has a channel devoted to the art of cheese-making. His name is Gavin Webber and this is his YouTube page:

https://www.youtube.com/user/greeningofgavin

We decided that we were going to make the cheese for date night, which is Friday night for us. In researching how to make cheese, we found out that a good majority of cheese making products can be purchased in Wine brewing stores. We found one that is really close to where we live called "Brew Your Own Brew."

There was a very nice guy in the shop that answered all of our questions. We bought Citric acid, Lipase, rennet, and a thermometer. We then went to Walmart to get whole milk and some Greek yogurt.

That same night, we decided, for our first run, we would make Paneer cheese for our friends, Sam and Ashley. Paneer is a cheese typically used in India that is really easy to make and when done, takes the flavor of whatever dish it is, which is really good for dishes made with curry and other spices.

You start by taking half a gallon of milk and heating it up to boiling. Stirring constantly. You then add the yogurt and a couple tablespoons of lemon so that the acid makes the cheese curdle.

Then you need to drain the whey, which is the liquid that forms around the curds. You do this by placing a cloth especially made for cheese making called cheese cloth into a strainer and pouring the curds and whey into the strainer so they separate.

Then while in the cheese cloth, you take the curds and flatten it in between two boards and 4 pounds of weight, so the excess whey can be released.

After 30 minutes of waiting, your Paneer is ready to be sliced into cubes and used in your recipes.

We gave it to our friends Ashley and Sam! It was a really fun endeavor.

We are going to be making Mozzarella soon enough!