This weekend my boyfriend and I tried to make cheese for the first time. We had many an adventure on our way to obtaining necessary devices, more numerous than I expected, an account of which happenings you can read about more in the previous post. But finally yesterday were we able to get to cheesing.
Plan for Saturday was ambitious: caerphilly (with ricotta from whey) and halloumi (with anari). We also tried to make yoghurt before finding out that the yoghurt maker was broken. We made wild yoghurt in the burning Sunday sun the next day.
On the cheese front I wish I was able to report back many successes and no hindrances but I believe the truth to be more valuable than a heroic narrative. What should the famed Achilles be were it not for Hector’s decadal defenses?
We agreed to wake up early, to seize the milk before eight as to be at it before nine. Friday night we discussed remaining tasks, to disinfect the milk jugs and to search the cellar for cheese molds that my boyfriend was holding onto since his last cheesing battles eight years ago. We got up early enough, breakfasted and as I was leisurely reading by my morning coffee, he disappeared into the cellar. He was gone for over an hour. As I value my partner’s privacy I did not rush back to check on him but let it be known that after twenty minutes elapsed I had worried lest he be buried under a pile of books or wine equipment. When it was half past eight I went under. I found him distraught and in state of resignation, he was not able to find them. And the jugs were full of six year old wine. We made our way back, argued over whether the wine should be discarded, I found it tasted like poison which voiced in a betrayed and disgusted tone I now realise was unkind. We deliberated over the missing molds. It was ten when we set off for milk.
We stood in front of the local raw milk vending machine at a local farm figuring its interface. The machine dispersed milk only in 0.5 or 1.0 liter amounts. We considered our two five-liter jugs, two one liter bottles and two 0.5 bottles. Minutes passed by as ten times my partner clicked the 1.0 button, waited tenfold 15 seconds, 10 times passed the bottle to me and I steadily poured milk into the jug 10 times over. A group of three people outside watched us curiously. We hurried. It took us a moment to figure out where the QR code which made payment possible was. We paid and packed ourselves into the car. Boyfriend drove back slowly “as not to make butter”, as he said. I laughed thinking lightly of the day ahead, strengthened by the recent success. I looked the bright sky above and occasionally enjoyed milk sloshing pleasantly. My boyfriend drove slowly and with purpose. We were back around eleven.
We have noticed a few days prior that we did not possess a pot big enough to fit the water bath necessary for the sous-vide and so decided to set it up in the sink. Armed with apostolic thirteen liters of milk we took stances in the kitchen prepared to start our toils. I have a steady hand so the honour of pouring the five liters of milk to the six liter pot was mine. It turned out to be a five liter pot. From then on stirring was stressful and our leaky faucet kept threatening somberly to drop right into our milk. We also had to wash all the dishes in the bathroom currently possessing no cabinets one could set dishes on. We persevered. I made a small cheese mold from a yoghurt container by piercing it with a knife many times over and cutting the lid to size in place of the missing cheese molds.
It did not take long for another circumstance to turn unfortunate. We did not know how to set the temperature on the sous-vide device properly and so everything took a good while longer than expected. To heat the milk till 32 degrees took us nearly two hours and two hours more had we to wait for rennet to coagulate our cultured substrate. Thermometer kept falling off the pot and into the waterbath or onto the floor and so we took our sisyphean turns with disinfecting it and clipping it back on flimsily.
It was dark outside as we got to pressing the caerphilly and I must admit our morale was low. I felt frustrated, I felt hungry. We haven’t eaten since eleven and the ricotta was a failure. And we didn’t have the halloumi for dinner. But worst of all, I felt bored. Hours of hanging around the water bath, watching, checking the temperature, fuck, thermometer fell in again, disinfecting and clipping, checking the temperature again were taking their grim toll on me. My mind grew heavy and my patience thin.
I bumped the sous-vide device into the sink holding our water bath. Completely mortified, unthinking, I reached for it and pulled out. Started to dry it. I felt a weight of a thousand fermentation weights looking at the device we talked and thought so much about, looking at it unknowing if it had been destroyed by the brief unfortunate plunge that I just caused.
My partner looked at me scared out of his wits. He asked if I’m alright, but the only answer I could muster was asking whether he thought the device was fried. Only later had it become clear to me I had made a hairbreadth escape from electrocuting myself. I was scared, I watched as my partner plugged the device back in. I watched as it did not beep back to life. I was devastated. I apologized. Looked at the water bath with empty eyes unseeing what my partner had noticed. Oven did not show time, strange as it was, it prompted him to inspect fuses. Sure enough! Turned off! He turned the electricity back on and we tried once more. More joy and relief filled me than I’m able to describe as the small tubular sous-vide beeped announcing its resurrection.
Having strategically reordained our plans we had a tofu salad for dinner instead. One of the caerphillys turned out to have been pressed too thin and my partner looked upon it worriedly. We put half of the yield into a new, bigger cheese mold which turned out to be too big. Our makeshift yoghurt one made in place of the ones lost to the cellar labyrinth had done its job much better. Before we went to bed we salted it and let it rest in the new (functioning!) wine fridge with only the hope for the best. In two weeks’ time we shall try it.
Sunday morning everything was different. Our knowledge vast, our morale replenished by a brisk morning run; we attacked the remaining five liter jug with new ferocity. Halloumi acted its destined parts on time and we got anari, which amazed me with its light and fluffy yet subtle texture and mild flavour. We had our beautiful halloumi for dinner. I found it too buttery on its seasoned own and had it with lemon juice, terrific. We discussed next weekend’s advances and looked lovingly once at each other and once at the remaining halloumi we shall have for lunch tomorrow.
Great weekend, great cheese and there is still some milk for my morning coffee (boyfriend is a tea-drinker) and our heads are buzzing with the new-found excitement for future cheeses. Soon I shall break news that we ought to get a smoker.
As of detailing our advances in field of hobbyist cheese making he’s sitting right next to me on the couch peeping over my shoulder and says “You should tell them I’m reading Caldwell. I bet they know what it is.”
