Final Results.

Ok, so this is what my little babies (LOL) looked like after they had dried.

I took some pictures on the morning before I went to school:

The one which had 25mL of vinegar. I accidentally labelled it as 20 but you get my drift 8]
As you can see, it obtained a distinctive yellow colour but hadn't turned all the way yellow.

The 50mL one. It has no yellow colouring effect and is harder than the aforementioned blob ;]

The 100mL of vinegar blob. It's pretty much white and was harder than both of the previous ones. It also had a more distinctive smell. (yeah I actually smelt this stuff)

Then when I came back home (like at 8:00?) I took a picture of all of them so you can directly compare them

Um yeah, just ignore the stuff on my table. The most yellow looking one is the one with 25mL, the whitest one was the 100mL. The 25mL was the softest and the 100mL one the hardest when I applied pressure to them with my finger. The 50mL casein was of course harder than the 25mL, but softer than 100mL. The 25mL vinegar casein also had a relatively faint smell of vinegar, while 50mL had a more distinct smell and the 100mL with the smelliest odour.

Well, I'm glad I've finally compelted my experiment, now all I need to do is write it up. Yay~
I still have my casein in my room, but I don't want to throw it out. T___T

FINAL EXPERIMENT

WARNING: IMAGE HEAVY POST

Ok, my conscious really feels so bad now for delaying the experiment so much. Gah, FML.
Anyway, lets hope this isn't a total failure like last time. ^^ and if it is, I'll just do it again


Update~
WOOT. SUCCESS HAS BLESSED US.

There was such a big difference after I changed my method increasing the amount of milk and lowering the amount of vinegar. I'm so happy. You can tell how much casein was made just by looking at the bowl.

PICTURES COME LATER, I'M SO TIRED RIGHT NOW T___T

Because I'm so awesome I again took a picture of my milk heating.

You can see in this picture that the little clumps of casein are much bigger than the ones I got before :D
I'm pretty sure this has to do with the ratio of vinegar to milk. But you can find that in my report. Mwahaha.

This is what the casein looked like when I put it on the cloth to drain. In case you didn't know what I meant by using a cloth to drain the water.

This looks really lulzy, but it's what I meant by tying the cloth around the tap so that the water could drain 8D

Woot! Look at how much casein I got this time around. ^^;;
Oh and I learnt from my mistakes. I used gloves so that my hands wouldn't be smelly. I hope it didn't affect the results though... >.<''

Also, there was minimal loss of casein this time (none went down the drain) but some tiny parts were still stuck on the cloth and in the bowl, which I couldn't get out. Inevitable error ;-;

I also found that some milk stuck to the bottom of the saucepan. I don't know why though D:

What my casein looks like almost right after I made it. They all look relatively similar now, but I found that the one with the least vinegar (25mL) was harder to squish around than the ones with higher vinegar content.


Also, I decided to tabulate the information before it sets (i.e. right after all the water has drained) and after I've let it set. This is because some of the differences in properties might change and it might be hard differentiating the differences :D

Possible errors: measuring amount of milk, measuring amount of vinegar, heating of the milk, drainage of the amount of water, collection of the casein from the filtering device, the differences in shape could change the aeration in the solid affecting the way it is set, my personal errors

Some more research~

How shameful of me to do it so late. amirite? Ah well, I tend to work well under pressure apparently so here we go!
For my introduction, as I mentioned before, I wanted to briefly describe what milk was... I seriously don't know how to describe it myself, besides saying that its a white liquid that tastes nice. LOL.
The thing that came up when I typed it in in Google was "a white nutritious liquid secreted by mammals and used as food by human beings" and I was like, obviously. (wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)
Anyway, then I'd talk about more stuff on milk and expand onto what casein is and why the reaction happens.
Then stuff about other experiments and afterwards, supposedly the aim and hypothesis should be subtly put in.

I need to learn how to reference. Like really badly. Did we get taught in class? I can't remember if we did. Oh well. Time for Google. -cracks knuckles-

Oh and seeing as I am really tired today, I'm doing my experiment on Monday (public holiday FTW) or tomorrow. I'm such a bad person. I'll regret it later though.

Another Delay...

I seem like such a slack student T_____T

But it's seriously not my fault~ Remember how I said I'd do my experiment on Tuesday? Well, I got sick on Monday night with the aforementioned conditions that my siblings experienced so I couldn't do it. I also missed out on the cover sheet omg fml so hard for the report. So I need to see Ms Zhang. ASAP.
Or maybe I'll just photocopy someone elses. Ms Z, you don't need to sign off my name or something when you give it to me do you...?

ANYWAY, I'm going to do my experiment on Saturday now[after I finish my coaching tests ;-;].

Risk Assessment -gulp-

So, a little birdy told me that we had to write up a risk assessment. I can't really think of anything that is too fdangerous about my experiment. Eating/drinking milk, vinegar and casein isn't really that bad for you (I think) it's just that it might not taste too nice LOL. Which reminds me of that year 8 or 9 experiment where we had to taste stuff like vinegar on our tongues and I was the test subject because Emilyn an Jamie bullied me into it. -.-''

Anyway, I know that boiling milk is potentially dangerous as well as pouring it into a bowl. Yes, very dangerous

Identify: boiling milk, stove
Assess: is able to cause burns or scalding to skin
Control: do not place hands near stove, carefully pour milk into bowl
Disposal: milk is able to be poured down sink

SUPER IMPROVED METHOD

Equipment

·        1x spoon

·        1x large strip of cloth

·        1x saucepan

·        1x thermometer

·        1x measuring cup

·        1x ceramic bowl

·        350mL of vinegar

·        190mL of full cream milk

Procedure

·        Place the strip of cloth over the sink and the ceramic bowl on the bench.

·        Pour 20mL of vinegar into the measuring cup.

·        Heat the 200mL of milk in the saucepan to a temperature of 50°C.

·        Pour the heated milk into the ceramic bowl.

·        Add the vinegar to the milk in the bowl.

·        Stir the mixture with a spoon for one minute.

·        Pour the contents of the bowl carefully onto the cloth.
-Grab the corners of the cloth and tie the cloth around the tap so that the liquid is able to drain at the bottom.
-Wait for 5 minutes for the liquid to drain.

·        Remove the cloth from the tap.
-Gather the solids in the cloth and mould into a relatively round ball.

·        Place in the sun to dry for one day.

·        Tabulate information on the resultant substance including: weight, hardness, colour, flexibility and smell.

·        Repeat experiment replacing 20mL of vinegar with 0mL, 50mL and 100mL of vinegar.

Not doing my experiment yet...

Why? Because my brother and sister are currently diarrhea-ing and vomiting all over our house and setting up a smelly experiment in the kitchen wouldn't exactly be helpful to my parents, especially as they went to the hospital last night at 12:30 and left me alone at home. So, for now I'm just going to have to write up my report and do the experiment later. Maybe Tuesday would be a good day... or Wednesday. I can't believe how soon the SRP is due ;-;

Ok, so for the method all I have to do is change my blog's method to passive past tense in paragraph form. Which reminds me that I have to change the method again so that I can use the cloth as a strainer rather than the normal strainers. So this will be the third time writing my method out. Joy.

Need to Start Writing my SRP soon....

I'm seriously so screwed. But hopefully I won't leave it until the last minute. I've decided that I'll redo my experiment on the weekend or on Friday night.
Now, however I need to write the whole report up!

Firstly there's the abstract which is a brief summary of what I did.Which shouldn't be too hard seeing as I didn't have much to start off with anyway
Then I should write my introduction... I'll put it in dot point here and write it up in full for my report. :D

Explain what casein is.
Explain why milk reacts this way when vinegar is added to it?
Say what uses casein has (i.e making mishti, cottage cheese, yoghurt etc)

And the rest I will think about and add later...

My Awesome Revelation

Long time no post man. LOL.
Anyway, remember how I found out that my experiment is actually used for making curry stuff? Well, my aunty happens to do this experiment practically every week. Why? Because she sells mishti. Mwahahaha. So I asked her about my experiment and I found out that...

Too much vinegar = the end product is too hard and smells really bad but there is also more
Too little vinegar = end product doesn't form too well, smell isn't as bad but not that much is made

Also, when I told her how much milk I used, she told me that you could get less than a hand full of casein. Well, now I know how much I lost down the drain. And why she has humongous pots in her house.
Furthermore, I delved into the deepest pits of my memory until I remembered my parents making mishti, and I really wanted to help. Anyway, the main point is that when they filtered the casein, they used a cloth to drain out all of the water, so that the water could completely come out and no casein would be lost. Now I know why a normal strainer didn't work. x.x

So... all that's left is for me to do my experiment again? Oh wait, I have to write up my method, AGAIN. Waaaaaah~

----- I just realised, do I list my aunty in my a references, bibliography or acknowledgments? I'm leaning towards acknowledgment...