For Jeff's birthday I bought him a mozzarella making kit. And of course, whatever I buy for Jeff I also buy for myself - so we can compare notes. Hmm, or maybe an excuse for me to get new toys!
Our first attempt at making the cheese was at Sarah & Jeff's house. We made a trip to Whole Foods to find a milk that wasn't ultra-pasteurized. Back at home we started by heating the milk with diluted calcium chloride, citric acid and diluted lipase powder-all from our kit. The calcium chloride helps to restore the balance between calcium and protein in store bought milk; the citric acid is used to acidify the milk and to enable the rennet (added later) to produce a firm curd; and the lipase powder is a natural enzyme used for flavor. When the milk reached 88 degrees we added dissolved rennet. The rennet is an enzyme that causes protein to coagulate. We let the milk heat to 105 degrees, stirring briefly every couple of minutes and then removed from the heat and let sit for 20 minutes. During this time the curd and whey fully separate.
We drained off the whey and placed the curd in the microwave for one minute. Drained off more whey and kneaded the curd to release even more whey. Then we added some flaked salt (also from the kit) and heated again in the microwave. Now it was time to stretch the cheese. It should be soft, like taffy -- ours was hard and stringy..
..and looked like the inside of a baseball.
It tasted good, but we are definitely going have to work on our technique.
Our first attempt at making the cheese was at Sarah & Jeff's house. We made a trip to Whole Foods to find a milk that wasn't ultra-pasteurized. Back at home we started by heating the milk with diluted calcium chloride, citric acid and diluted lipase powder-all from our kit. The calcium chloride helps to restore the balance between calcium and protein in store bought milk; the citric acid is used to acidify the milk and to enable the rennet (added later) to produce a firm curd; and the lipase powder is a natural enzyme used for flavor. When the milk reached 88 degrees we added dissolved rennet. The rennet is an enzyme that causes protein to coagulate. We let the milk heat to 105 degrees, stirring briefly every couple of minutes and then removed from the heat and let sit for 20 minutes. During this time the curd and whey fully separate.
We drained off the whey and placed the curd in the microwave for one minute. Drained off more whey and kneaded the curd to release even more whey. Then we added some flaked salt (also from the kit) and heated again in the microwave. Now it was time to stretch the cheese. It should be soft, like taffy -- ours was hard and stringy....and looked like the inside of a baseball.It tasted good, but we are definitely going have to work on our technique.Back home in Ventura, I decided to try again. We thought the problem may have been the temperature, so I wanted to follow the same procedures we previously used except for the temperature. I actually found the same milk we had used at a local health food store:
I felt like I got the curd to separate from the whey more this time, the texture felt softer and I was feeling pretty good about getting a nice soft, stretchy cheese.
But when all was said and done, I ended up with the same hard stringy cheese that we produced in our first attempt.Oh well, it's back to the drawing board. John & Sarah think we have gone way overboard with this crazy experiment, but Jeff & I are up to the challenge and we will eventually make the perfect mozzarella for our pizzas. I'll keep you posted.
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