In my very first blog post I began to attempt making the Pennsylvania Dutch recipe "Ball Cheese." This proved to be quite a journey and I learned a few very important things along the way. The first and most important piece of information is that in order to make cheese you must use RAW milk, not the pasteurized and homogenized stuff you find in the regular grocery store. The first gallon I used to make Ball Cheese was pasteurized and, after a phone call from my mother and a panicked "OH, don't do that!" I learned that the bacteria needed to turn the milk into cheese was killed off in the pasteurization process. This sent me to Reading Terminal Market where I picked up a gallon of raw milk and began the cheese again. This time, the milk was entirely different. It began to spoil almost immediately, but it did not give off the terrible smell that the first gallon did. The milk became thick and creamy, and eventually separated into what is known as the curds and whey (Little Miss Muffet, anyone?).
After the milk thoroughly thickened, I poured the chunky mixture into a bowl lined with doubled cheese cloth.
Then, I separated the curds from the whey!
It took several hours for the water to drain from the cheese, so I let the cheese cloth hang over the sink until the drips stopped. Then, I spooned the cheese mixture onto a ceramic plate (as the recipe specified) and set it to rest for three days.
The next step will be to prepare the cheese for "ripening" which involves a coat of baking soda and a ceramic crock. Look forward to my third Ball Cheese post in about fourteen days!
Happy adventuring!
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