It has been over four months, and I decided it was time to give it a shot. If you haven’t read the earlier post(s), back in early March, I made a parmesan cheese wheel from goat milk. I have been anxiously waiting for enough time to pass to try this first wheel, and hopefully give me confidence for the rest of the wheels in the refrigerator, and encourage me to explore further. I really want to make a swiss and a blue cheese.

I thought it smelled incredible. However, there is clearly something I need to learn, or some tools that I need to find and learn to use… it is next to impossible to cut the wheel into wedges. Ultimately, we have to score the wheel, and then work together to break the wheel into four wedges. My left arm is not terribly functional these days, but we work well together to accomplish the breaking of the wheel, and then grate the sides of the wedge to smooth it.

I put this first wheel through a rather extended salt brine that was really concentrated. As a result, Tiffany thinks it is a bit salty. I am not convinced, and she agrees that it is great for adding to noodle dishes like ravioli or spaghetti. I have had several dishes with freshly grated parmesan on them, and loved each and every one of them. The only fine grating we can do requires Tiffany’s nutmeg grater, so the cheese is a little too fine. That’s why the picture looks almost like a cloud of ice crystals. I put a bunch in a cheese shaker like I remember from the pizza restaurants of my younger days, but it refuses to come through the holes in the shaker. Another tool on our horizon.
Next stop: CHEDDAR! (still needs a couple of months)