Wheel Throwing 101

I just started an 11 week class in wheel throwing (think the movie Ghost but without any erotic paranormal love scenes.) The class meets once a week for 2.5 hours and also includes some open studio time when anyone in the class can use the facilities free of charge.  There are 6 students and one instructor, Larry.  The first thing we learned to do was work a lump of clay into a plyable sphere that we would mount on the potter's wheel.  This technique is called wedging.  The idea is to get just the right balance of moisture so that the clay will be easy to work but not too soft that it will not hold a form.  Larry then gave us a demonstration of the steps used to pull up a cylinder.  It is all about centering. If you don't get the clay centered properly you will envitably have issues later in the process. He began by cupping his hands over the clay while resting his elbows on his knees. This allowed him to keep his hands centered and force the clay to slowly center itself.  He then pushed his hands slowly together causing the clay to morph into a cone shape. Then he would gradually push from the top and bring in down into a stout cylinder shape.  Doing this a few times eventually brought the clay to center.  Once centered, he pressed gently in the center creating a dimple. While adding water from the sponge he contiuned to create a small hole that reached down until about 1/2 inch from the bottom.  Once this was created he used a few hand techniques to slowly open the hole until it began to resemble a small pot. It was like magic.  Now it was our turn. He instructed each of us to grab a sponge, small bowl for water, a tool used to determine base thickness and sit at one of the wheel stations and do what he just did.  It certainly looked easier when he did it.  It took a little time, some grumbling and the enevitable mistakes but in the end I was able to pull three pots. It is all about feel.  He recommended to us that if we were having issues to close our eyes and focus more on the touch. I refrained from making any "use the force" comments...  I really enjoyed the class a lot. The instructor is very laid back and all of the students seem very friendly.  I can't wait to make some more pots...

A Cheesy Endeavor

9/10/2008

My latest OCD driven obsession has been the pursuit of homemade cheese. Really, how hard can it be? Well as it turns out, it isn't very difficult to make soft cheeses, at least not as difficult as many people seem to think.  For my first attempt I chose whole milk mozzarella. This recipe called for rennet, citric acid and butter muslin (a professional grade cheesecloth), all of which I purchased from cheesemaking.com. I have to say that it turned out reasonably well, though at one point in the process I thought I was going to pour the whole batch down the drain. It took me about 2 hours to make turn 1 gallon of pasteurized whole milk into about 1 pound of mozzarella cheese. Most of this time was spent waiting for things to happen, like reaching the correct temperature or allowing the rennet to work its magic on the milk by separating it into curds and whey. The only part in the process that gave me any real concern was the step after straining the curd through the cheesecloth. I was supposed to then add the cubes of curd to a pot of hot salty water at which point the curds would melt together and form the cheese. Well, this transformation never happened. It just turned into what appeared to be a pot of water with cottage cheese. I was going to ditch the whole experiment but after reading another recipe, a 30 minutes microwave recipe, I decided to just strain the whole mess and then put the curd in a bowl and nuke it for a minute or so. So that is what I did and Presto! I opened the microwave and took out a hot and steamy lump of stretchy mozzarella cheese. It was pretty cool.

15 min. after adding rennet...

Straining the curd

After straining...

After 1 minute in microwave...

The finished product with homegrown tomato and Basil and dressed with salt and olive oil..mmmm