I started out making a Manchego from Rikki’s recipe this a.m. and have screwed it up. So, it will be something of my own “invention”. Just in case it is good, I want to document my “recipe”.

I started with Rikki’s recipe. Two gallons of whole milk, heat to 86 degrees, add both meso and thermo cultures. Allow to set for 45 minutes. Added 1/4 tsp of lipase powder dissolved for about an hour in 1/4 cup well water. Then added 1/4 tsp of CaCl and 1/2 tsp of rennet, again dissolved (separately) in some well water. This was supposed to set to coagulate at 86 degrees for 1/2 hour. It was not quite at 86 degrees, so I turned the heat under my double-boiler arrangement onto very low—planning to turn it off as I went out to walk the dogs. I forgot. The dog walk lasted about 1-1/4 hours and when I got back I had very good coagulation of the milk! And, it was at about 92 degrees uncut. However, the surrounding whey was about 110 degrees and when I cut the curd, it quickly came to that temp. I’ve just stirred it off and on over the past hour with a large whisk and am about to drain and press. I’ll let you know…

Looking forward to the result maybe yourl get a Parmesan type cheese lol

I suspect you are right that it will probably be more like a Parma than anything else. Maybe I’ll age it for a year and get a good grating cheese!

lots of good invetions came out of accidents LOL

I pressed at 15# for 15 minutes, redressed and repeated 3 times. Then pressed at 30# for several hours. Before going to bed, I put the round in brine and left it overnight, probably about 8 hours. I dried the cheese and put it on a mat in the basement at about 58 degrees. I’ll turn it daily and see what happens. The texture looks nice. The odor is great.

Lets see it

Okay, here it is. Not very exciting. It has a great odor, probably mostly from the lipase. I’ll let it age for about 3 months and give it a go.

Looks great :D Nice and clean. Too bad no smellavision yet.