Dry, pasty, crumbly cheese.
It’s the curse of any cheese that you hoped would turn out smooth and soft.
There are cheeses that we expect to have a slightly drier or crumblier texture, but when it isn’t planned, it’s a real disappointment, and the worst part is that you usually don’t know your cheese has gone that way until after you’ve waited weeks, or months, and then cut it open to find less than desirable results. Read more
With cheese making, there are a couple of real ‘buzz moments’ for me.
The first is when I get a really good, firm curd and get a strange satisfaction from cutting it in clean, neat lines. The other is when I make Camembert and see that gorgeous fluffy white mold growing over the cheese.
That beautiful Camembert cheese mold, there’s nothing better than watching that white blanket start to cover over each round, signally the beginnings of another successful Camembert batch. Read more
If you’ve ever pressed a cheese and ended up with curd that has failed to knit together, you’ll know how disappointing this dilemma is. I certainly do!
The point of pressing your cheese is to not only expel the whey but it is also how the small curds are knitted together to form the smooth shape, texture and density of the cheese.
When the curds don’t knit properly you will get a range of results from creases, cracks and crevices throughout the cheese, or a complete catastrophe of curd that doesn’t form any kind of shape or mass and just falls apart.
So what causes a lack of knit with cheese curds? Read more
Mozzarella, it’s the cheese that many new cheese makers try first because of its quick results, delicious taste and versatility of use.
Recipes like 30 Minute Mozzarella make it even more appealing, especially for those who are time poor but want to get involved in home cheese making and experience the thrill of creating their own cheese products.
But, while this recipe is quick and simple and caters to that need for instant gratification, it often causes new cheese makers the most frustration and questions about how to master the delightful stringy cheese they imagined creating. Read more
Storing your Feta in Brine is the most common way to preserve this cheese, but what do you if your Feta ends up too salty to enjoy?
Everyone enjoys different levels of salt and Feta is a cheese that has a saltier taste associated with it due to the aging method and the usual preservation method.
In fact if you ever get the chance to eat a traditional Feta from Greece or Cyprus, it’s likely the cheese will be much more salty than any other Feta you’ve eaten.
But, after the hard work you put into your Feta, it can be disappointing when you end up with a batch of cheese that is inedible because of too much salt. Read more
Here at Curd-Nerd I’ve mentioned Calcium Chloride(caci2) a few times, mostly in relation to brine solutions, and you may have also seen it listed as an ingredient in the cheese recipe books you have.
Calcium Chloride (CaCI2) is a salt solution, which is used in cheese making to restore the calcium balance of milk.
Ricotta is traditionally made from the whey left over after making your main rennet set cheese recipe.
You may find that at times that you get an extremely low yield from your Ricotta make, which makes it hardly seem worth the effort.
There are a few things that will influence the yield you get from your whey including the season the milk is produced in, the level of acidity, the temperature you heat the whey to and the type of cheese you made first.
You’ve made a lovely batch of Feta. It’s been salted and aged and now you want to store it for use later on.
You’ve followed the instructions and put it in a salty brine. A few days later, it starts to soften, go slimy and ‘melt’ in the solution.
Why does your Feta brine solution make your Feta melt?