Guessing vs being sure

I just made cheese using a thermometer for the first time. Always before, I made it without. Why? Because I didn't own one! I have long been a kitchen minimalist, but I finally realized that dipping my finger into things and guessing wasn't the ideal method. It's been a bit of a revelation, as I have found that my guesses apparently aren't all that accurate. I don't know why I hadn't bought a kitchen thermometer. After going through candy thermometers at quite a rate, I learned long ago to to test for soft ball and hard ball stage. I do have a thermometer I use for checking the temperature of roasting meats. But for lower temps, I relied on the pinky method, just as I so often rely on the guess method for measuring so many things.

Who knew how freaking hot 135 degrees really is? It's pretty danged hot! Kneading a mass of almost-mozzarella isn't easy. Just minutes later, however, it was cheese, ready for me to pinch off delicious warm bits.

Hey, when my mother was first married she didn't have a potato masher, and used a glass Coke bottle. We didn't have a colander when I was growing up; we held a plate against the pot of pasta in order to drain off the water. So I come by my minimalist tendencies honestly.

I still roll my eyes at many kitchen gadgets, such as cupcake makers and salad spinners. You're better off with basic, versatile kitchen equipment. And one of those items you should have is a thermometer.

While I've never had a batch of cheese fail to turn out, I did notice this one curded up better, and I have to think it's because I added the citric acid and rennet at the correct temps, not what I guessed were the right temps. And the temperature of the cheese during the kneading stage is far hotter than I thought -- I had to use a spoon to help with the kneading this time, as 135 degrees is quite a bit hotter than I can touch without pain.

I used the thermometer a few days ago to actually check the temp of the water I was using to proof my yeast. I have, it seems, been way off all along. You can get the water quite a bit hotter than I thought. I've always erred on the side of too cool, fearing to kill the yeast. 

If you're saying to yourself: "She's been cooking how long and she just now figured out that a thermometer is a handy thing to have?" you perhaps came from a household well-stocked with kitchen equipment, and have had the luxury of a perfect kitchen from your first apartment. I've already told you about my mother's Coke bottle. (She did get a potato masher eventually). When I was in college, I so lacked kitchen equipment that I often had to eat cereal using a measuring spoon, owning only one spoon and two forks. So if you look at it that way, I've actually come quite far.

Get a thermometer. They aren't expensive.