How to make a soft-ripened cheese parts 1 and 2

So, now it is time to get down to making cheese. The first cheese I am going to make is a soft-ripened cheese called Quark. I first learned how to make this cheese from Larry and +Linda Faillace while attending a cheese making class taught at their Three Shepherds Farm. This is a rennet assisted cheese. This means that we use a little rennet to help in the formation of curds. Let me go over some basics for a few minutes. Cheese making involves the process of forming curds from milk solids. There are two ways to do this, with acid or with rennet. In later blogs we will go into much more detail on the formation of curd and other subjects. But for now we will stay pretty basic. This cheese combines both methods. The acid is formed by the use of a mesophilic starter. This starter will consume the lactose sugar and convert it into lactic acid. After 24 hours a soft curd will form. For the cheese we are making, we are going to add a few drops of rennet to aid in the formation of the curd. Watch the videos below to learn how to make this cheese.