Pelican Parts Forums - Making cheese

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Like the title says, who's done it successfully?

I tried yesterday to make mozzarella and I failed. Spent about 3 hours with it and never got a clean break on my curd.
I'm using whole milk, citric acid and rennet.

Anybody got tips for success?

I haven't tried to make any yet, but I'm planning to this fall. I'll be following the thread. Hope someone can chime in.

I typically make ricotta for my lasagna and ravioli but I do have a couple questions about the mozzarella?

What temp are you adding the rennet? Are you mixing the Citric Acid and rennet in water first?

Check your milk. If it is Ultra Pasteurized, it won't work at all.

I put the rennet and citric acid in at 90F both dissolved in water.

The milk I used came was whole milk from Food Lion and did not say it was ultra pasteurized. i think the milk was my main problem.

Put the citric acid in from the start. You will start to see curds and whey separate at 90 degrees with the citric. Add the rennet at the 90 degrees.

If you are making ricotta you would only do the citric acid and a little salt (about 1 tsp per gallon) for taste and heat to 180 degrees, strain through cheese cloth. MMM.

Quote:

Originally Posted by peppy (Post 8207269)

My wife makes mozzarella, cheddar, Gouda, Swiss...

Mozzarella Cheese Recipe
MozzarellaDryMilk

Do get a very fine scale to measure your rennet and such, it can make or break the cheese:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012LOQUQ
Keep everything painfully clean/sterile.
We use a cheap steel stock pot and put it in the sink full of hot water, keeps things more stable. Get 2 or 3 cheap digital thermometers to keep track of all of your various fluids (whey, sink water, rinse water, etc):
Amazon.com: CDN DTQ450X ProAccurate Quick-Read Thermometer: Meat Thermometers: Kitchen & Dining

Keep a logbook where you document EVERYTHING, helps when you get a bad batch and find out that you ran some parameter out of range (time, temp, etc).

Mozzarella is pretty forgiving, but you'll want to move into more complex stuff, and the learning curve steepens quickly.

I am good at cutting the cheese. Never tried to make it.

My wife has good luck, I have not tried it.