Make It Yourself

I am so excited, I just got my digital copy of Make magazine issue number 53.  Make magazine is a magazine for Do It Yourselves and usually looks at electronics etc but this one focuses on food.  Yes food!

There are two projects that are perfect for the person who likes to make things from scratch.  First is the one day wood fired pizza oven with all the necessary instructions to make one yourself.

The cool thing about this project is its design.  It is designed to be put together, used, and then taken apart so you do not have to dedicate part of your backyard to the pizza oven.  You don't have to worry about it being out all winter, especially if you live somewhere you get tons of snow.

You can build it on a workbench or on a raised platform.  The author gives you information on both.  Furthermore, if you want to make this a permanent fixture, the author even tells you how to do that.  I like the clear instructions, great pictures, and warnings about which bricks to use and not use.  He states you should not use standard red bricks as they may explode at the high temperatures needed to bake the pizza.

They even provide a link to the magazine website for further information should you want to explore the topic further.

The second topic explores the science of cheese making.  That is something I have on my list for the future because I do not have the time.  Instead of the standard information of heating milk, add this, do that, it explains the two types of cheese culture, primary and secondary, you can use to make your cheese.

According to the author, you can rub the rind from a high quality cheese to inoculate a recently made wheel of cheese because the rind carries the culture needed to finish the wheel. You have to rub it all over your cheese to make sure the whole wheel is inoculated.  I never knew you could do that. 

The other way is to create your own by transferring the culture to bread and using that to inoculate the cheese while its in liquid form.  It sounds quite simple and on par with using sourdough.

Again, you can check Make Magazine for this information if you are interested in pursuing it further.  Enjoy the reading.