First cheese making experiment..

Wish I had more pics of this, but the Boss had the camera on the day I whipped this one off.. so the only pic I have is the finished, new cheese, right out of the cheese press mold. I started out to make a Monterrey Jack style cheese, with two gallons of milk (Pasturised, non Homeginized Organic style stuff). Not the raw cow or goat milk I aspire to, but I'm just starting out, right? Well, I followed the recipes in my Ricki Carrol Home Cheese making book step by step and used the stuff I got from Thecheesemaker.com to build it up and I'll be darned, the whole thing worked out just fine! Only 'problem' I had was the pressing part, where my one wobbly follower design make a 1/4" taller cheese on one side than the other. It's hardly noticable, unless you measure it or really stare at it awhile while spinning it, but it bothers me. I already have a solution in mind and I'll be doing that build up and documenting it soon enough on here.. stand by! Anyway, here she is, in all her fresh cheesey glory!

 

Simply awesome!

The book didn't say, but I notice a few airgaps along the edge of this wheel and wonder if I was supposed to break up the curds into smaller pieces before I packed 'em in the press. I might look into that a bit more before I do the next one. I still have to flip this wheel a couple times a day till it's dry, then wax it with the cheese wax I have to go pick up today.. then the aging part comes in. I hope to do another one next week so I  can get a stash of cheeses going here. I'll say, a two lb wheel of cheese is a mighty big chunk to look at.. It's 6" across and like, 2" on one side of the wheel and 2-1/4" on the opposite (told you it was lopsided.. I just measured it!). It's definately substantial! Unfortunately, it's got an even longer wait til than beer does.. whereas I can have a beer from brew day to pint glass in 20 days +/-, this cheese is a *minimum* of 30 days.. and they reccomend up to 120 days if you can handle that. That's why I need to make another really quick, so I can see the difference between an aged and a younger one, side by side.. see what I like better.

While whittling it down to a nice shape, I tasted the bits I shaved off the outside of the wheel.. it's a bit tangy in taste, like yogurt, but not terribly complex at this stage. The whole aging part is where the magic happens and why old, properly aged cheese bring in the big money. We'll see what the basement in Barkhamsted can do for that..

In other news, I'm back to messing around with my old standard roasting machinery, the heat gun. Having some quality control issues with the flavors of my latest batches coming out sort of baked and lifeless from the Behmor.. stand by for some clarification on that when I get some more roasts done. 

That's all for now.. go click my Google money link! I need the cash! ;)

The great Cheese Press build..

And so it begins..

 

 Me and Pete W. started fabricating the fantastic cheese press I'll be using shortly.. What you see here is just a standard 6" diameter piece of PVC pipe and a wooden 'follower' for the press, cut out with my 6" hole saw from a block of White Oak. More stuff to get assembled to this, eventually, but this is the raw basics. Pete got an identical copy too, which he heroically cut out, free hand, with a table saw (the cut on the PVC pipe, not the follower..). This was truly insanity, as I thought at any moment we'd be making a trip to the hospital for a lost arm or broken nose when this thing kicked back from the saw. 

Fortunately, everything turned out OK, and this is the beginning. Still waiting for the stuff I ordered in the mail to arrive, and I've gotta make a trip out to Hartford for a block of cheese wax I forgot to order from the mail order place... but I've been studying a few videos and websites lately and it doesn't look too hard after all. The aging part will be somewhat weird, as I need high humidity and low temps.. (80% humidity and 55-ish degrees for temps..) and I don't have a spare fridge in which to make this happen. We'll figure that out later...

Chickens in the underbrush..

Hello!



Just a quick pic or two of the ladies diggin' in their new favorite spot in the bushes between my yard and the next door neighbors. Eatin' bugs, worms, ticks and whatever. They make me so proud! :-)



And finally, a group shot.. of most of them, anyway...



13 weeks old yesterday, they were. Started with 5, still have 5. No health issues, and smooth sailing so far with chickens. I can still whole heartedly recommend them to anyone and everyone. They give lots of laughs with the weird things they do out in the yard and take almost no time or energy to maintain. I also cleaned out their coop for the first time yesterday. There was virtually no smell whatsoever, but I cleaned it out anyway. they went just under two months with the first round of wood chips. It's all in the compost now.. we'll see how that goes.

Cheese and a smoked beer...

Greeting, kids.

Here's a pic of my ENTIRE hop harvest for 2009. All 13 (ick!) cones from my Cascades plant, thrown into the whirlpool of the American Wheat Apple wood Smoked Fresh Hop Ale. 1.060 gravity, so no slouch in the abv department. Me and Jody switched it up and went FLY sparging this time, just for kicks, and the brew house efficiency went through the roof, apparently. Hmm.


And here's a shot of the beer yesterday, with the very first wisps of foam getting chucked out the top of the fermenter. Smells like smoke! Hmm...


In other news, the chickens have had their 13th week birthday today (Yaay! Still have five of 'em!) and are all doing just great.

Kid's back!

Greetings!

Check this gnarly 'stash I sported for about 1/2 an hour while on vacation! SWEET!


Good news is, my cell phone came back to life towards the end of the trip... About 4 days later, after the swim, the phone started working and a couple days after that the front screen display started working again. Only thing not working right now is the camera function. Ah well...

The chickens are also back in their proper place, having had a good time down at Franks for the week. They're bigger now! 12 weeks strong, just a few more to go before, hopefully, egg time!

Here's a shot from the far back of the Tun Tavern and Brewpub, in Atlantic City, NJ. What you're looking at is the view across the entire room to the *elevated* serving and conditioning tanks. The actual brewery is located on the floor level, but after the brewing process, the beer is pumped UP to the next level to this temperature controlled and totally glass enclosed box where all the brite tanks are kept. You can see on the right side of this pic, just barely, next to the stairs, that there's a big, fat, gray colored hose about 8" in diameter.. that's where the beer comes down, right out of the brite tanks to the tap heads at the bar when you pull the handle. Oh, snap! This is easily the coolest, most weirdly setup brewery I've ever seen. The best part? The beer! I've only been here twice, but both times the food was excellent and the beer was fantastic. Totally recommended for anyone in Atlantic City to stop in there and have a drink.. you won't be disappointed. Right in the middle of town, too.

Ghetto Fridge..

Better than nothing! A keg at the vacation house.. three snaps up for me. This is my weeks beer supply, right here. Behold:


So far, so good. A minor issue with a leak in the regulator to tank at first, but fixed that right up with a quick spare washer I brought from the house. On the side is a six'er of a few Anchor Bocks, an Uncle Mike's Party Pale Ale, an '06 Barleywine, and an Imperial from.. umm.. '07, I think.

In other news, I went swimming with my cell phone in my pocket, so my celly is junk. Killed. No go. Don't bother to call, cause only the fishes will get the message. I am truly on vacation, unreachable, except.. well.. via email, Twitter, Facebook, www.mikesupsanddowns.blogspot.com, and the wife's cell. So, damn.. I guess I am reachable after all.

On day two, I broke the right side outdrive on my Rustler VXL, and my spare is at home in the spare parts box. Snap! R/C down and out for the remainder!

Take care, kids.. I'm out!

Exploding Bottles..

Not how I wanted to start my day, finding this stuff, but.. alas.. here it is. Went downstairs to swap out some laundry and re-arrange some items on the beer shelf, and ended up picking up the crate that holds my mega-old mead.. you know, the stuff I rarely drink, cause I'm trying to make it last a decade and see what it tastes like then? Yeah, that stuff.. Noticed a cork on the floor and thought that was weird.. then realized where that cork came from. One cork followed another, until four in total were gathered around on the floor at my feet. You know, near where my tears were also gathering.

Drats.

Here's a pic of the killed units:















Notice the dust? Yeah that's years of gathered dust right there, kids. All for naught.

Here's a pic of the survivors:















You'll noticed, if you look close, that the one all the way to the right has about 1/4 of a cork protruding. That bottle is now in my fridge, and is gonna get drank up right quick before it, too, explodes.. and will also help console me for the loss of the previously mentioned fallen.

Some weird green moldy stuff on the floor too. apparently, these bombs went off a long time ago.. not recently. I had no idea.

In other news, here's a pic of the Lagunitas Hop Stoopid I drank the other day. Hoppy. Strong. Drank it solo. Should have brought a friend! Pretty agressive beer.. coarse hoppiness in there, but still went down well. Wife wouldn't have liked it.. she don't like that agressive hoppiness stuff in beers.















The Boss is also supposed to be picking up the new car this evening, too. More on that later. The "Mommy Bus" is no longer with us after 1730 hours.. stay tuned for more.