Cumin seed gouda and new toys

After I got my Christmas cakes into the oven today I started on some cumin seed gouda. I'm making more ricotta salata with the whey too. Here they both are under their final weights:


I also cleaned up and calibrated my new cheesemaking toy:


It's an old waterbath from the teaching labs at work - they didn't want it any more, partly because it won't go any cooler than ~30˚C. That's fine for making cheese, so I nabbed before it got dumped. That little black knob at the front is the temperature dial, and it was pointing at totally the wrong temperatures. I filled the thing with water, then turned the temperature up and took note of what it really was at each mark, then removed the knob and replaced it so that the pointer was pointing correctly. Luckily the 10˚C increment markers still mark 10˚C increments, so I didn't need to write new numbers on it. It's going to be very handy - it's a pain not being able to use the sink for anything else when I'm making cheese.

Below are my new bento toys:


Very industrial looking, don't you think?