Thursday, March 29, 2012

Yogurt! Errr... cheese.

I have been making slow cooker yogurt with my boyfriend for a few months. I procured very detailed instructions from this blog. Earlier this week, we started a batch and I went home before the process had ended so I could rest my exhausted self.

Now. In short, you heat some milk to 180 then cool it to exactly 110 or 111. Then you're supposed to add your starter culture.

Well.

Our thermometer beeps when it it reaches whatever temp we set it to but it does not alarm for falling temperature. My dear got a little distracted and ended up adding the starter at 106 degrees. So upon my arrival in the morning, there was nothing more than warm milk in the crock pot. Sigh...no yogurt for breakfast today.

We've rescued uncultured milk before so we heated it back up last night. We noticed how the whey was separating from the white mass and had a GREEN tint (he was a little disturbed by this). When the probe read 112 we wrapped the stoneware in a towel to sit overnight and see what would happen.

In the morning as I was pouring off the whey, I discovered a round blob of ricotta cheese! I strained the mass through a sieve and plopped it into a bowl to refrigerate after taking a taste. Quite good!

Now I have to figure out what I'm making with it for dinner tonight.

Also on my list of things to do is get a camera so I can capture these moments and call myself a "real" blogger.

Peace.