Blessed are the cheesemakers

There's a traditional Olde English saying which goes something along the lines of 'make hay whilst the sun shines, and halloumi when it does not'. It was a wet & miserable Saturday this weekend, so after a vigorous morning of chores we settled down in the afternoon to make some cheese.

We had a 'Mad Millies soft cheesemaking kit' that we bought a few months ago with 'all you need to make different cheeses'. That was a bit of an overstatement as once you opened it they also recommended a 'Mad Millies cheesemaking equipment' kit. Luckily we had everything we needed (with a bit of improvisation) so were able to crack on.

Further inspection showed that the Mad Millies kit didn't really contain that much at all - a feta mould (but we were making halloumi), some liquid rennet, some dried herbs, cheese salt, cheesecloth, some cultures and a manual that had been printed on standard A4 printer paper. Still, the instructions for halloumi looked simple enough - 

Take 4l of unhomogenised milk

Heat to 45 degrees

Add rennet in solution, stir and leave sitting at 45 degrees for 45 minutes, when you should get a 'clean break' (where most of the solid curd has formed)

It was at this point that it all went sour (*arf*). Despite being left for a couple of hours, the milk showed no sign of solidifying. I looked up why this might be, and the main reason is the rennet is either past it's use by date or has been stored incorrectly. Unfortunately there was no use-by date on the bottle that we had. 

We ended up leaving it overnight and even then there was still a fair bit of moisture in the milk. Nevermind - it didn't taste 'off' so the only thing to do was (cheese) press on.

The next morning there was some solidification of the milk, but still quite a lot of moisture

 

We sliced the curds and gave them a stir

Then drained the mix through cheese cloth, which separates the (liquid) whey from the (solid) curds. The draining took more than a couple of hours, so we had to load it up with water-filled containers and go drink beer whilst we were waiting.

After getting back from the pub the curds had dried out

We boiled it up in salty water for 10 or so minutes (until it rose the surface of the water) and then salted and cooled it

At this point it squeaked your teeth like haloumi should, although it tasted a lot more milky than the shop-bought equivalent.

Still tasted pretty good fried up though 

To be honest the cheese kit was a bit of a waste of cash. If you fancy making soft cheese (haloumi, cottage cheese, ricotta, feta) then it's not that hard and it doesn't need much specialised kit. The Mad Millies kit gave us the inspiration to give it a go, but it didn't really give us much to work with. The instructions are vague & unclear - 'when the texture seems right' doesn't help much first time around, and every recipe I've seen online suggests a milk temperature of between 32 and 38 degrees for haloumi whearas the paper guide suggests a temperature of 45 degrees. Even the rennet didn't have a use-by date on the bottle, although their website suggests you make sure the rennet you use is still within its active life. I reckon you'd be better off getting a cheesemaking book from an op-shop, looking up recipes on-line, getting the rennet locally or over the 'net and spend the savings at a boutique beer festival whilst the cheese is draining. 

Armakeggon

We're at a real beer festival in archive at the minute - 20 odd craft brews available in 200 ml tasting glasses, or bigger if you prefer. One beer is the famous Mikkeler 1000 ibu ipa - more hoppy than hoppy itself.

Where's Mikey?

The Weekend Australian this weekend has a picture feature on the Kite & Bikes festival at Brunswick Heads in 2009. Liz & I were down there taking part in the attempt to get the most kites up in the sky at one go, and we're in the picture. Can you spot us? Click on the picture for a slightly bigger image.

(It's a lot easier in the magazine, but thanks to Gordy who grabbed the online image for me. It seems like only yesterday I was writing a tutorial showing you how to post pictures online :) )

Hint - I'm wearing a hat & a black singlet, and Liz is in a pink shirt.....

My favorite view of Perth

Heading home.

Perth views

The client in perth has one of the best views I've seen from an office in a long time



Like almost every other construction company on the West coast, business is going nuts. The owner is a classic self-made millionaire - owns 6 boats in various ports, and loves to hang out at his regular upmarket pub declaiming his views to all that grace his extensive bar tab. Good company, but probably only if you agree with his views on the woes of socialist governments, tax breaks for high earners and the lack of need for a social welfare program. There was a lot of tongue-biting on my part.

Did get the chance to have a wander around perth and get some more pictures though...

Perth

Well, made it to Perth without mishap. Those from the uk may not realise the distances involved, but it's a five hour flight to cross the continent and there's a 2 hr time difference. Western Australia shares it's time zones with Asia, not the rest of Australia.

It's a pretty place though with lots of classic old stone buildings and historic frontages, including this pub just up from the apartments



At $11 a pint you'd expect the ironwork to be pretty!

Working weekend

Another beautiful weekend in brisbane. Traditionally the westerly winds pick up in the middle of August and this year has been no exception. The sky is blue, the wind carries a pleasant chill and it's generally a lovely time to be outdoors.

Unfortunately I spent most of my saturday doing this



Now it's sunday afternoon, and I'm on my way to Perth



In five hours time I'll get off the plane, ready to be fresh at a clients site tomorrow morning.

It's part of the job to travel, and sometimes you need to put in some extra time to get stuff done. It's just unfortunate when it combines on one weekend.

Still, at least I can sleep happy in the knowledge that the owner of the company is a little bit closer to his next new Porsche because of my efforts. It makes it all worthwhile.

Old Rides, New Trick (Bits)

I've been mucking around with the setup and componentry on some of my old bikes recently. First off the clown bike has had a makeover

 The major differences (apart from a long overdue clean) are flat pedals and a bling front wheel

The flat pedals are a bit of an experiment to get my skills up. Generally what happens with mountain bikers is that they start with ordinary pedals (aka 'flats'), and the thought of clipping yourself into clipless* pedals seems crazy. Over time they get more comfortable one the bike and they're also encouraged by all their mates to move onto clipless. Eventually they succumb and initially will nervously pedal around the nearest park, practicing disconnects. Twisting their feet when stopping quickly becomes second nature and they venture out in public, normally having a few classic 'forgetting to unclip' stacks at the most embaressing times (outside the office, at the carpark after a ride, at the lights in front of a car-load of pretty girls).

That's pretty much it for a lot of riders. Clipless pedals give you more power, stop your feet from bouncing off the pedals on rough stuff and allow you to pull the back wheel up easily. So they become a must-have component. But they also make you lazy. Switching back to flats makes you work the bike harder, makes you feel more at one with the bike and just generally feel good. And the funny thing is everyone who is used to clipless reckon that switching back to flats is crazy.....

I've also made some tweaks to the Five, my all mountain / trail bike

  

 It's now got a shorter stem and wider bars - 710mm wide

These feel ridiculously wide at first, especially when you're used to 660mm wide bars. That extra 25mm a side feels like it's going to clip every tree beside the trail. But wider bars theoretically give you more leverage on the bike and allow you to control & turn the bike more effectively. To be honest they're a bit of a fad at the minute, but they feel good.

I tested the clown bike out at Daisy Hill on Monday afternoon. My feet got a bit light on the pedals at times, the back wheel took a battering and my shins were itching in fear the entire time - if you slip off one pedal your entire body weight drops onto the other one, spinning the empty and pin-studded pedal around until it impacts into your unprotected shin at high velocity. But it generally felt good.

And today I took the Five out to Mt Joyce. I was feeling a bit empty and tired so struggled a lot up the hills but coming back down was a blast. So much so that I snapped a spoke in my back wheel. Pretty happy with the bars, although we'll see how we go somewhere with some narrower tree-squeezes. 

Of course at the end of the day it's not your bike but how you ride it, as demonstrated by Gordy on a fully rigid (ie no suspension) singlespeed (ie no gears). He lead the way up most of the hills and was happy to get gnarley on the way back down.....

*sigh*. Maybe one day.

* Bike Nerd fact. Originally riders would uses clips & straps to attach their pedals to their feet. Eventually quick-release style bindings were developed which use a cleat screwed into the base of the shoe. When this is twisted this cleat has a cam which triggers a spring and unclips the binding. These didn't need clips - hence 'clipless' pedals.  

Happy birthday Mum!!!!!!

Hope you had a great day! Wish I could have been there to give you a birthday hug.

The belly of the beast

After the fishing trip I went for a bit of a ride down to Surfers Paradise, probably 5km or so away from where I was parked.

The ride down is beautiful - cruising along next to a golden beach and a torqouise sea - but the destination is very built up - my friend Miff would call it the heart of the matrix, I think of it more as the belly of the beast.

 The skyscrapers are so large and so close to the beach that in the afternoons they cast an ever-moving shadow, designed to irritate even the most laid back of sunbathers

 The real irony of Surfers is that it's not even a good surfing beach - it's all beach breaks & sandbanks. In the very far distance you can see a headland and that is where Snapper Rocks is, one of the best points in the world. But no, at 'Surfers Paradise' you fight your way out through the break.

Surfers is an odd place for me. I always feel that I should spend more time there, but every time I do I just want to get out. Fortunately the ride back was just as nice as the ride in

and as an added extra I found a previously unknown (to me  at least) gravelly sandy access path that undulated it's way through the sand dunes and continued along the side of the beach down to the end of 'the Spit'

 You can see the city in the distance. And no, that bike is not comfortable over long distances.

By chance I bumped into some friends who were skating in the same area. I'd been fishing with a couple of them earlier that morning so it wasn't a total coincidence that we were all down there, but we hadn't arranged to meet up. Obviously the skating had taken it out of them because a few decided to grab hold and get a tow - apparently I ended up towing 6 of them. It's great resistance training.

Another bonus of the trip was that the Gold Coast seems to have a more leniant take on the nanny-state mandatory bike helmet laws which are in place across Australia. Although obviously all photos above were staged - I realise that even sitting on a stationary bike without a helmet will almost certainly lead to brain damage, death AND psoriasis of your private parts, and so appropriate helmetry was worn for all genuine riding...

Gone fishin'

Early this morning I headed down to the Gold Coast for a fishing trip. Very early in fact - leaving the house at 5.15 was hard, although at least the drive down was pretty quiet!

We headed out at 7am, leaving Surfers Paradise behind us in the morning fog

Looking back it's a strange place, the Gold Coast. Kind of like Australia's Las Vegas, except the sky scrapers rise from the beach and not the desert.

The fishing itself was - relaxing. The crew would stop the boat and we'd all drop the lines down to the seafloor. Then it was just a question of waiting for a bite

Unfortunately the fishing was a bit slow - despite the best efforts of the charter boat we only caught a few fish, and for us at least all of those were too small to eat. Farley took the first cab of off the rank with this cute but apparently venemous baby rock cod  

Monte caught a couple of small bream

and on my very last catch I hooked a bream, in a way very similar to this startled looking animal

Some interest was provided by some passing whales

but on the whole it was just a case of chilling out on the deck and enjoying being out on the water on such a lovely day

 Luckily the pros had had better luck than us, so we could enjoy a fish & chip lunch when we docked.

A decent fry up

Saturday mornings in the uk often meant hungover fry-ups, a tradition I've got out of over here. But we bought some decent bacon the other day, so I thought it was time to reclog the arteries.



The trick is to scour the pan with the baked beans, to ensure you preserve every ounce of fat. Sorry, cholesterol-suffering people.

Best eaten in front of saturday morning cartoons with a decent cup of coffee.....

Byron Markets

Byron Bay has a market on on the first Sunday of each month. This coincided with our stay at Byron so we had a wander around, and it was good to see that they market didn't attract any sterotypes

 The food was great though - breakfast burritos are awesome

It's not just the people that look unusual - some interesting handlebar set-ups and even some stem-testicles, which will probably appeal to my touring bike mates.

It's easy to laugh at the hippy loons fulfilling their sterotypes, but in some ways I'm jealous. Yes, it may be laughably cliche at times

but there's something about people following their dreams and ideals regardless of common sense or practicality which appeals to me...