The last cheesemaking experiment seems to have worked out beautifully as far as I can see. But now, another recipe that I want to try calls for stirring the curds gently but consistently for 45 minutes straight – all my love for cheese aside, I won’t do that. That’s why I made a cheesecurd stirrer:

The principle is stolen from the concept of a wort stirrer for beer making that I knocked together years ago, but this time I wanted it not to stir circularly but to stir vertically. As you can see, the construction is easy, the motor is a 12V low-speed-motor from eBay, the rest is scrap from the shop.

The result can be admired above, I’m dying to try it in reality so I’ll have to go get some fresh milk next week 🙂

I figured my cooking knives deserved a little love after seeing rather heavy action in the last weeks. Since climbing stairs is not my favourite activity these days, I looked for a possibility to sharpen them properly in the kitchen, not downstairs in the shop. So behold Farcyde’s newest ingenious piece of engineering: My kitchen sink whetstone holder!

It took easily one whole hour to make it and another heaping 5 minutes for some protective oil coat! It’s taylor-made to fit into my kitchen sink snugly and to be on the safe side I also added an anti-slip pad under the whetstone and at the areas of support. One night of drying to let the oil set a little and it’s ready for use. A simple construction, the images speak for themselves.

(This is part III of the cider making series. Read part I, part II and part IV here.)

It seems the primary fermentation has come to a halt do far, so it’s time to transfer everything into another vessel and let the secondary fermentation take it’s course. The correct english term for this seems to be “racking the cider off it’s lees”.

While the primary fermentation is about yeast cells converting sugar into alcohol and CO², the second fermentation is lactic acid bacteria converting malic acid into lactic acid and CO² and give the brew a smoother, less sour taste. It occurs naturally and spontaneously when the liquid is transferred to a storage container and the yeast is no longer the dominant microbiological species in the soon-to-be cider.