[Sca-cooks] Cheese, a progress report

[Craig Jones]

> The milk and cream were mixed and sat out to around room
> temperature then boiling water was added and this sat
> until it again reached room temp. After this the rennet
> was added and here is where the problem started. Nothing
> happened.  I waited and there was a bit of thickening but
> nowhere near the proper congealing. I added more rennet
> and waited. Nothing.

Usually rennet comes in a concentrated liquid which you have
to dilute. The trick is to use distilled water as tap water
(with the chlorine it contains) destroys the rennet,
although it sounds like a lack of acidity (see below).

> More. Nothing. I finally did an old
> Farmer's Cheese trick and added about a tablespoon of
> distilled white vinegar. That did the trick and after
> about an hour the milk had developed very delicate curds.

I was under the impression that for rennet to work properly,
there had to be some extra acidity in the milk (usually by
souring bacteria (usually lactobacillus) producing lactic
acid)?

Drakey - no accidents lately (apart from dropping a washing
machine on my foot).