Cheese-making week entailed the very smokey process of heating milk combined with lemon juice and eventually rennet over a fire, letting the curds and whey naturally separate, cutting and straining the curds, and finally forming them into mozzarella balls in a salt bath. To maintain the proper temperature for cheese formation, which is about the same as the human body, our readings are recorded below. The other table measures the weight of the cheese throughout the process to illustrate how much volume is lost in the final product.
| Time | Time (hours: minutes) | Temperature (°C) | Process Step |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2:49 PM | 00:00 | 15 | Begin warming combined milk and lemon juice on fire |
| 2:54 PM | 00:05 | 39 | Took pot off heat to cool to 32° |
| 2:59 PM | 00:10 | 35 | |
| 3:07 PM | 00:18 | 33 | Stirred and added rennet |
| 3:17 PM | 00:28 | 33 | Let sit for 30 minutes |
| 3:27 PM | 00:38 | 30 | |
| 3:37 PM | 00:48 | 36 | Reheated on fire |
| 3:47 PM | 00:58 | 30 | Cutting a grid into the curds |
| 3:51 PM | 01:02 | 38 | Reheating on fire |
| 3:56 PM | 01:07 | 35 | Gently stirring curds |
| 4:01 PM | 01:12 | 34 | Gently stirring curds |
| 4:07 PM | 01:18 | 33 | Last temp reading before separating whey |
| Material to Measure | Weight (kg) |
|---|---|
| Milk in glass jugs | 5.77 |
| Empty glass jugs | 1.86 |
| True milk weight | 3.91 |
| Curd weighed in cheese net (cheese net weight negligible) | 1.16 |
| Whey in glass jugs | 5.23 |
| True whey weight | 3.37 |
| Pressed cheese (about half of curds) | 0.36 |
| Mozzarella balls (about half of curds) | 0.31 |
| Curd weight lost (human error?) | 0.49 |
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