My first successful Mozzarela day

I tried the basic recipe found in BYO and failed miserably. I then strarted to do some research and found better information and methods to use.

I went to Leeners and purchased the rennet tablets, some calcium chloride, flaked salt and a few other future ingredients for other cheese recipe attempts.

On Wednesday morning, I purchased my milk and began my 3rd attempt (yeah... I failed at it the first couple of times). I placed my milk into the pot and added my citric acid (2 tsp.)and slowly began to heat the milk. After a few minutes, I added the clacium chloride (1/2 tsp. dissolved) and got the milk up to 88 degrees. During the heating I noticed some very small curd formulation that I had not achieved in the previous batch attempts. I believe this was due to better citric acid and the addition of the calcium chloride. I added the rennet (1/2 tablet dissolved in distilled water) and brought the milk up to 105 degrees (gently stirring every several minutes). I removed the pot from the heat and allowed it to sit for 20 minutes, then drained the whey from the curds. I heated the curds in the microwave and kneaded gently to seperate as much of the whey as possible. I added flaked salt to the mozzarella as I stretched it and after several minutes I was done. I cut it up into small pieces, wrapped it and placed it in the refrigerator for use tonight on my homemade pizza with all fresh, home grown ingredients and of course Beer to pair with.

The final product was a bit firmer than I had hoped for and I need to determine what if anything I did wrong. I was hoping for a softer texture. I suppose it may have been the stretching or it might have been the amount of rennet, calcium chloride additions. Can anyone offer some suggestions on getting a smoother, softer texture to the mozzarella?

This was a 1 gallon batch by the way.

Salute!

I have always been curious of how to make cheese but never tried it... How much yield do you get from 1 gallon of Milk roughly?

What type of milk? Where did you put the thermometer when taking the temp to get it to 108? I was having trouble there because the curds were like 89-93 degrees while the whey was getting up to 108+. I didn't know which one to measure and was always left with crumbly semi soft cheese.

Forrest has a nice video for his mozzarella kit.

I used whole milk. Pasturized but not Ultra Pasturized.

Less than 1 pound for sure. I did not weigh it so I can not be certain. Probably close to 1 though.

I used a long probe thermometer and also a digital quick response thermometer. I gently stirred the curds and checked each temp. One was a bit off from the other, but it worked out ok. I would think you are looking at the temperature of the whey as that is the most fluid of the two. Allowing it to sit for 20 minutes allows the heat to be transfered to the curds.

I like using the microwave to heat the curds instead of the whey and water mixture.

Salute!

Great video Forrest! My ingredient list was exactly the same as in the video. My only deviation was in microwave time. This may have attributed to my firmer texture. I microed for a second 60 seconds and should have reduced the time to 30.

Thanks for the video.

Salute!

Thanks for the video and recipe! I just made my first successful Mozzarella cheese! I am looking forward to having it with some Homebrew and watch some football!

Well, how was it?

bmckee56 said:

The final product was a bit firmer than I had hoped for and I need to determine what if anything I did wrong. I was hoping for a softer texture. I suppose it may have been the stretching or it might have been the amount of rennet, calcium chloride additions. Can anyone offer some suggestions on getting a smoother, softer texture to the mozzarella?

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I don't think you did anything wrong, but you may have squeezed too much whey out of the final product for your liking. Next time, perhaps knead the curd a little less so a small amount of whey remains.

If you're not sure who much to leave, maybe do a sample batch, where you knead for a bit, then remove a portion of the cheese and set it side. Knead the rest and squeeze out more whey, then remove a portion and set it aside, etc until your cheese is all portioned out, and each sample contains different amounts of whey. It'd be a cool way to see how the amount of whey in mozz affects your final product.

And it'd be interesting to see how those different mozz portions work in different types of food. Does a soft mozz work better on pizza? Does a firm mozz work best in lasagna?

Bowtiebrewery said:

I have always been curious of how to make cheese but never tried it... How much yield do you get from 1 gallon of Milk roughly?

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You get ~3/4lb of cheese to 1 gallon of milk.

What do you cheese makers do with your whey? I've only made mozz once, and won't again until I can figure what to do with 3/4 gallon of whey!

You are supposed to be able to boil it down and have a little ricotta to show for it.

Austinhomebrew said:

You are supposed to be able to boil it down and have a little ricotta to show for it.

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Yep; did that...

still a lot of whey that I don't want to throw away!

I haven't much use for it....and it takes up lots of freezer space.

I don't think it serves a useful purpose.

Forrest

AZ_IPA said:

You get ~3/4lb of cheese to 1 gallon of milk.

What do you cheese makers do with your whey? I've only made mozz once, and won't again until I can figure what to do with 3/4 gallon of whey!

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I am still a newby so all I can offer is that using the whey you can make ricotta cheese and also make brine for salting or flavoring other cheeses. Whey can be frozen for future use at a later time.

Salute!

AZ_IPA said:

Yep; did that...

still a lot of whey that I don't want to throw away!

I haven't much use for it....and it takes up lots of freezer space.

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You can use the whey for feeding any knd of livestock, I have read some people make drinks from it with mint and other additives but the best option to me is using it in bread making instead of water.

Also, regarding uses for whey, it helps clean the cheese cloth nicely. I had trouble getting all the little bits of curds off the cloth but found the swishing the cloth around in the whey loosened the curds up and they came off easily.

I am trying to find out how to make softer mozzeralla as well but I think the problem tends to be in over kneading it and/or squeezing too much whey out of it during the microwaving and of things.

If you find the solution let me know!

AZ_IPA said:

Yep; did that...

still a lot of whey that I don't want to throw away!

I haven't much use for it....and it takes up lots of freezer space.

Click to expand...

I'll take it. Dry it. I'll mix it with water and drink before I workout..It should make a nice protein drink.

I boil it down till it resembles watered down milk, then store it in 1 cup portions in the freezer,
I use it in bread dough, sauces, soups, and making omelets
pete

You can soak beans or grains, use it to inoculate cabbage to make sauerkraut, replace it for water in breads (makes a real soft bread), or compost it. Thats all I can think of right now.

Ryan

Just like bread, I sometimes use it to make pizza dough. Also, cooking your pasta in it will give a nice creamy texture.

Wow, I keep finding these threads that I should have found right away. I started making cheese almost 2 years ago. And beer only in january.

For a softer mozzarella I found that it is really hard to be done with the microwave and knead/pull method. The best way is to strain your curd. Heat your whey to about 180. Press the curd into a small ball and dunk into the hot whey. Less whey will be lost. After 30 sec to 1 min strain out kneed and dunk again. It usually takes a few dunkings until it gets glossy. Then pinch off what size ball you want and dunk in ice water. Afterwards you can also salt the whey and use that to store your cheese in. The softest mozzarella I ever got I added 1 cup of 1/2 & 1/2 or heavy cream to whole milk and took care not to kneed too much, then stored in olive oil. Ended up too soft, that I was gaging on it!

P.s. Good ricotta can only be made from the whey from hard cheeses, you will beat yourself up trying to get anything of significance from the whey of 30-min mozzarella.

I have only done a couple of batches, but I found that over-kneeding really made the first batch tough and chewy. The second time I microwaved and heated more carefully and it turned out better. I also under salted the first batch, and the second was very tasty. I think having more fat content will make it softer as well.