Newbie with Problems with Basic Mozzarella
 

I purchased a thirty minute mozzarella kit, but had difficulties with making it. Before I progress further with a hobby that I have spent lots of time considering entering, I want to see any advice on what I may have did wrong.

Basically, I followed the instructions included in the kit. The curds formed, but didn't look as impressively solid as some pictures I saw. Still, a significant amount of curds formed and I progressed through the instructions pretty easily.

The problem I had was in forming the mozzarella into a stretchy material that could be turned into mozzarella. What I had was a loose and gooey substance that was not quite stretchy enough to make cheese. The best comparison I have is pizza dough that is too wet and doughy to work with. It stuck to my hands and couldn't be formed all that easily.

Eventually, I wrapped it in plastic wrap and put it in ice water. The texture is closer to cream cheese then mozzarella, though it is kind of a hybrid. The flavor is not bad (too salty, but that is easy to fix), but not quite mozzarella.

Would like to see where I went wrong. Here are some missteps I may have made.

1) I used pasterized whole milk (not ultra pasterized) and added a pint of heavy cream. I did so because I read the heavy cream retains some of the bacteria that may be removed from the milk. Could this have led to problems?

2) I don't have a microwave and used a double boiler technique to heat the cheese up to form it once the curds formed. It was fairly hot (to the touch it was hard to work with), so I don't think this caused many problems.

Any other similar experiences to mine and any recommendations?

Thanks.

This is a good thread. One person seemed to experience what you did. Someone also said that homoginized milk creates a less than desirable result as well. Check it out here. http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f130/what-brands-store-bought-milk-work-making-cheese-114585/

We haven't had good results using milk from the grocery store, no matter which cheese we make. I would suggest looking around for a dairy that sells the pasturized non-homogized milk. With the cheeses we have made it worked much better.

To find them i just googled dairies near by my location.