Felicity loves science fair projects. Last year she did a project on vocal ranges, and she won first place at her school, and got to compete at the district science fair. She LOVED it! This year when science fair project time rolled around she spent plenty of time up at the library looking at science fair project books. Nothing appealed to her. She really wanted to do something different. She wanted to go to districts again with the hopes of winning a ribbon there, so she could go on to compete at the state level... No pressure, right?
Then we opened up some cheeses I had made with some friends, and tasted it. Felicity was intrigued with how different they tasted when the ingredients were the same. We heated the milk to different temperatures, raised the temperature at different rates, and we pressed the cheddar cheese with more weight. The results were two very different cheeses. She decided she wanted to do something with cheesemaking. Next she checked out the world book encyclopedia and a book about cheese and spent some time doing some research. She also spent some time reading through my cheesemaking book. It took her about a week to come up with the actual question she wanted to investigate through her project. "Does the amount of fat in milk affect cheese?"
To test this she decided to make monterey jack cheese three times using the same recipe. The only thing she would change was the type of milk. She used whole milk, 2 percent milk, and skim milk. She would test three things. Did the amount of fat affect the taste, the texture, and the yield, or amount of cheese, she got from 2 gallons of milk.
This is just a brief overview of what she did. I took so many pictures of her doing each step, that her field journal is over fifty pages long. I will spare you some of the details!
Before she could make the cheese she had to make a cheese mold. She used a pineapple juice can, and with a hammer and a nail she poked holes in the bottom and up the sides of the can.
Here she is adding the rennet to the ripened milk.
After the milk had coagulated, she had to cut the curds. Felicity was very careful trying to cut 1/2 inch curds.
Next she had to "cook" the curds by slowly raising the temperature two degrees every five minutes. To do this she put her pot in the sink and used hot water to raise the temperature. Here she is adding some hot water from a pot on the stove to the sink.
After the curds were cooked she drained off the whey, and then it was time to season them. Here she is adding some cheese salt.
Here are the finished curds. She put these into a cheese mold lined with sanitized cheesecloth.
She pressed her cheese for twelve hours.
She then let her cheese breathe for three days at room temperature. At last it was time to wax it. She dipped each wheel of cheese into melted cheese wax, and then let them age at 55 degrees for one month.
Here she is with one the finished wheels of cheese!
All three cheeses. Any guesses as to which was made with which kind of milk?
This was the first of several blind cheese tastings she hosted. She had 24 people taste her cheeses. They chose which one they thought tasted the best, and left additional comments on comment cards. There was a clear winner. The Monterey Jack made with whole milk was almost everyone's favorite. Everyone said all the cheese tasted awesome which was so exciting for Felicity.
Two weeks ago, Felicity competed at her school's science fair where she, not only won a blue ribbon, she was also awarded a perfect score, and will be represeting her school at the district science fair. She is counting down the days. February 11 can not come fast enough for that little girl!
This might be the longest blog post I have ever written, and if you made it to the end, you also deserve a blue ribbon!
