Cheese!

About a week and half ago I was gifted with a kefir, or kefir grains as it is typically called. Kefir grains are little communities of bacteria and yeast that when place in milk, will ferment the liquid into a sort of yogurt drink. The grains resemble cauliflower, and with the proper love and caring, will continue to grow each week. I named mine, Kiefer Sutherland.

The Kiefer grains need to be placed in milk and left in a dark warm place to do their magic. This is a picture of my larger kefir, Donald Sutherland. You can see him floating at the top of the milk. It takes about 24 hours for him to congeal one full glass of milk.



Tonight I decided to try my hand at making some cheese. I won't know until tomorrow if I succeeded or not, but here is what I have accomplished so far.

I took about a cup of kefir drink and added it to four cups of regular milk and heated it up to separate the curds from the whey.



After several minutes the curds really start to form and the yellowish whey forms at the top. I wasn't sure exactly how long to keep the mixture heated, so I took it off the burner once I felt like I had enough curd to make something substantial.



Once the curd is strained from the whey, I formed it into a ball. I submerged the ball in water, but this was a mistake. The ball was not stable enough and needed to be drained first. Now the ball of cheese is currently draining in cheese cloth over a pot. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to heat the dried curd back up and make mozzarella.