First Cheese, May 1

WooooHoooo! Finally enough waiting, enough discarding. Ruthie's two week moratorium on milk is over! Goat's milk cannot be used for two weeks after the goat has been given worming medicine. Sweet Pea's milk cannot be used for another week because of the antibiotics she received after her c-section. But....Ruthie is ready! We made our first batch of Chevre today. It was a day of firsts actually. Bob purchased a pasteurizer. It will hold two gallons of milk at a time. This will be a great time saver. No more hovering and stirring over a pot of milk, thermometer in one hand spoon in the other. It does have a slight learning curve. The instruction manual, all four pages, is minimally detailed. This is a great frustration for Bob, mister by the manual, steps 1 through 8, in order, do not deviate from the plan. We got through it without too much difficulty. Next, measuring culture. Upon closer inspection, Bob realized the scale we have does not measure in small enough increments to weigh the culture that he purchased correctly. Plan B was immediately put into place. Off to Scisaliano's for a thermometer; yes, we didn't have the right one, and a scale. We called and the sales clerk thought they had one that would work. They had a thermometer but not the correct scale. Plan C was implemented. Purchase pre-measured culture..done! Despite all the running, all the plan changes, this first batch of Chevre was very successful! The Chevre will be used in several items for the wedding dinner so several batches will be made and frozen. The next cheese experiment after that will be Gouda, or maybe Mozzarella. How about Camambaer? Ricotta? I could do Swiss... or a nice Cheddar......the possibilities....Carmen