(The scale is brand-spanking new)
There are two non-ingredient things that I simply cannot do without for making cheese: a walkie and a 200 gram scale. How do I know this? Because when either doesn't work I have a conniption fit worthy of an intervention - an anxiety attack - and a minor panic - all the while scrambling around for McGyver-style solutions.
"Think, think, think" says Winnie The Pooh (yes, he's inside my head, along with Mr. Krabs, and a few others who are actually real people).
While walkie disasters are remedied by a box of 20 spare batteries (redundancy comforts me) or frantically waving to Dan through the window; scale malfunction is quite another thing.
Everreadys resolve garden-variety scale problems, too - but knocking the thing onto a concrete floor before you've used it is a sure-fire way to ruin a batch of cheese.
Imagine this dose of early-morning reality: milk is coming into the tank at 5:00 a.m. and there is suddenly no way to accurately measure cultures while the window to add them ticks away...or is there?
I first grabbed the closest of the seven scales I own: the "salt" scale. (I know, that's a lot of measuring equipment, but you should see how many calculators I have.)
No good, it won't register anything under 10 grams. (Shakes fist at ceiling)
I went to the house and found that one of the scales I keep there measured a minimum of 5 grams - but failed to register less than 5-gram increments thereafter. Whatever! I can deal with eyeballing the difference.
Did that batch of cheese come out well? I'll know the answer in 60 days. Someone, call a therapist ;)
