30 Minute Microwave Mozzarella

SWMBO & I were back making cheese again this morning and here is the end result:



It came out of the icewater bath at the 45 minute mark & was ready to eat.
I was just going to do the whole pictorial again when I found this one already done. Ricki's 30 Minute Mozzarella Magic This saved me enough time to make another whole batch

I think the only thing we did not do was pull it as much or long as she did. Ours turned out very good and we would make it exactly the same again in the future but might try it her way tomorrow since it looks like this cheese probably wont make it through the weekend

We used:
1 gallon whole milk (just pasturized not ultra-pasturized)
2 teaspoons Citric Acid
1/2 Teaspoon Liquid Animal Rennet
2 Teaspoons Cheese Salt

I have been somewhat skeptical of this recipe, but you say it tastes good, right? I might try it.

How well does it melt down, for example, to put on top of a pizza? Does it brown nicely? Does it flow?

Thanks for the link..I didn't know it could be done so easily!

Sir Humpsalot said:

How well does it melt down, for example, to put on top of a pizza? Does it brown nicely? Does it flow?

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Fresh mozzarella is far different from the low moisture cheese usually used in American pizza making. Superior's cheese would probably be great on a Margherita style pizza which is usually sauce-less, made with fresh tomatoes and slices of fresh mozzarella.

I'm anxious to see Superior's answer, though...

French farmers make something as shown in Ricki's How-to (your link), except they stop after the draining... letting it cool. I ate a lot of it as a child...!

Delicious with boiled potatoes and home-grown lettuce or mache just picked for the garden...

From what I understand you can control how it comes out by the amount of rennet you add, and how much you drain it.
We were shooting for somewhere in the middle. It is softer than store bought blocks of mozzarella but not as soft as the fresh mozzarella. When I sliced it you could pull it apart like string cheese only it wasn't as stringy or dense. It was basically melting the last two times in the microwave and you just work it till its cool. If I would have stopped one time sooner and used slightly less rennet it would have been like fresh, if I would have stretched it out more and nuked it one more time it would have been harder and more string cheese like.
I think it's easier to understand when you are working with it. You can just kind of tell when to stop and how it will end up.
I am pretty sure it will shred, melt and brown like normal mozzarella.

Will do some testing tonight and tomorrow.

Yuri_Rage said:

Fresh mozzarella is far different from the low moisture cheese usually used in American pizza making. Superior's cheese would probably be great on a Margherita style pizza which is usually sauce-less, made with fresh tomatoes and slices of fresh mozzarella.

I'm anxious to see Superior's answer, though...

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I'm from Chicago. Land of good pizza. Fresh Mozzarella, I know, is the commonly used ingredient in the better pizzas around here. The other night for V-day we made a pizza. Deep dish, homemade crust, sausage, homemade sauce, pepperoni, mushrooms and fresh mozzarella. Phenomenal!!!!

You just really can't even make a decent pizza with the dried out mozzarella that you find in most supermarkets. I just wasn't sure if this had those same characteristics.

Thanks for enlightening me!!!

Sir Humpsalot said:

Thanks for enlightening me!!!

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Ha! No problem...seems I should bite my tongue more often!

Yuri_Rage said:

Ha! No problem...seems I should bite my tongue more often!

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Nah, it's totally cool. Here... just for you, I'll upload some food pr0n from V-day....

2 inches thick, loaded to the gills with pepperoni, fresh sausage, fresh mushrooms, fresh diced tomatoes and grilled garlic...

No, the edges aren't burned at all, it is just very crispy cheese. There's not even a hint of burned-ness to it (tho, if we could have, we would've let the top brown a bit more...)

As a matter of perspective... I think it's about 14 inches in diameter...

We had marinated chicken breasts on whole wheat buns with marinara and mozzarella.
Crappy pic but it was 2 slices overlapping, it melted together nicely.

Sir Humpsalot said:

Nah, it's totally cool. Here... just for you, I'll upload some food pr0n from V-day....

2 inches thick, loaded to the gills with pepperoni, fresh sausage, fresh mushrooms, fresh diced tomatoes and grilled garlic...

No, the edges aren't burned at all, it is just very crispy cheese. There's not even a hint of burned-ness to it (tho, if we could have, we would've let the top brown a bit more...)

As a matter of perspective... I think it's about 14 inches around...

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That looks & sounds damn tasty :rockin:

Pretty good browning, pretty good melting. Looks like there's definitely a lot of potential there. A picture is worth a thousand words too, so thanks.

Where do you get your ingredients from?

So far from cheesemaking.com. I might hit the hardware store tomorrow and make a cheese press for the next batch.

SuperiorBrew said:

SWMBO & I were back making cheese again this morning and here is the end result:

It came out of the icewater bath at the 45 minute mark & was ready to eat.
I was just going to do the whole pictorial again when I found this one already done. Ricki's 30 Minute Mozzarella Magic This saved me enough time to make another whole batch

I think the only thing we did not do was pull it as much or long as she did. Ours turned out very good and we would make it exactly the same again in the future but might try it her way tomorrow since it looks like this cheese probably wont make it through the weekend

We used:
1 gallon whole milk (just pasturized not ultra-pasturized)
2 teaspoons Citric Acid
1/2 Teaspoon Liquid Animal Rennet
2 Teaspoons Cheese Salt

Click to expand...

Where did you get your milk?

SwAMi75 said:

Where did you get your milk?

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And the citric acid?

(Hoping for a local source....)

SwAMi75 said:

Where did you get your milk?

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I got the milk from a small local market, they buy it right from the farm down the road, it is pasturized but not ultra pasturized.

Beerrific said:

And the citric acid?

(Hoping for a local source....)

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The stuff I used came with my kit, I actually sell the same USP food grade stuff for use in cosmetics but didnt know it was used for cheese.

I think most health food stores would have regular pasturized milk and maybe even the cirtic acid.

SuperiorBrew said:

I got the milk from a small local market, they buy it right from the farm down the road, it is pasturized but not ultra pasturized.

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We have a chain of dairy stores here that sell from their dairy here in the state....I looked them up on the web, and they say that they heat at higher temps and for longer than the federal standard for pasteurization, so I'm assuming that means UP. That sucks, because there's one right around the corner.

I need to do some digging around, because I'd love to make some of this stuff!

SwAMi75 said:

We have a chain of dairy stores here that sell from their dairy here in the state....I looked them up on the web, and they say that they heat at higher temps and for longer than the federal standard for pasteurization, so I'm assuming that means UP. That sucks, because there's one right around the corner.

I need to do some digging around, because I'd love to make some of this stuff!

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The mozzarella can be made with powdered milk and cream I believe, poke around on cheesemaking .com in the recipe section.

SuperiorBrew said:

The mozzarella can be made with powdered milk and cream I believe, poke around on cheesemaking .com in the recipe section.

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Powdered milk had crossed my mind....I'll look around on there. Thanks!

SwAMi75 said:

Powdered milk had crossed my mind....I'll look around on there. Thanks!

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I made another batch today to use up the other gallon of whole milk. After reading and looking at pictures of Ultra Pasteurized milk during the cheese making process, I am almost certain that even the milk from the local farm is Ultra. It did make some decent cheese but I will be trying the powdered and cream net time.

I found this printed on the instruction page. Not on the website where I thought I had seen it.

Use Powdered milk & Cream when all you can find is the ULTRA Pasteurized. This method is widely used and tastes delicious. When using powdered milk mix enough to make 1 gallon and reconstitute at least 12 hours or overnight.
When preparing to make your mozzarella substitute 1 pint of light or half and half cream (The richer the cream the softer and richer the cheese) for 1 pint of the milk. and follow the same recipe, This method is delicious and often preferred over the whole mail variety. Carnation seems to work quite well.

SuperiorBrew said:

I made another batch today to use up the other gallon of whole milk. After reading and looking at pictures of Ultra Pasteurized milk during the cheese making process, I am almost certain that even the milk from the local farm is Ultra. It did make some decent cheese but I will be trying the powdered and cream net time.

I found this printed on the instruction page. Not on the website where I thought I had seen it.

DELICIOUS DRY MILK POWDER ALTERNATIVE​

Use Powdered milk & Cream when all you can find is the ULTRA Pasteurized. This method is widely used and tastes delicious. When using powdered milk mix enough to make 1 gallon and reconstitute at least 12 hours or overnight.
When preparing to make your mozzarella substitute 1 pint of light or half and half cream (The richer the cream the softer and richer the cheese) for 1 pint of the milk. and follow the same recipe, This method is delicious and often preferred over the whole mail variety. Carnation seems to work quite well.

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When you're using this method, you mix the milk powder with water like you would regularly, right?

Revvy said:

When you're using this method, you mix the milk powder with water like you would regularly, right?

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Thats the way I take it, you mix up a gallon and let it sit overnight then when your ready to make the cheese you hold back a pint of the milk and add the pint of cream.

SuperiorBrew said:

Thats the way I take it, you mix up a gallon and let it sit overnight then when your ready to make the cheese you hold back a pint of the milk and add the pint of cream.

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Are you going to try this soon? Let me know how it goes... I need to go grocery shopping this weekend, so I'll probably want to give this a try soon.

The only thing is...WHen I was growing up, my mom kept carnation powdered milk on hand in case we got snowed in and couldn't get to the store. I actually liked the taste when it was ice cold...but it didn't taste like "whole" milk, and it had sort of a "grainy" character to it, and definitely little or no fat content. (Of course this was over 30 years ago). I wonder if that's why you add the cream...to add the missing fat and smooth everything out....Interesting!

does the milk actually say ultra-pasteurized rather than just pasteurized?

It usually just says pasturized

http://www.cheesemaking.com/includes/modules/jWallace/OnLineNews/NewsFiles/MilkAbout.html#Anchor-11481

http://schmidling.com/milk.htm

How much cheese do you get from a gallon of milk?

rpucci said:

How much cheese do you get from a gallon of milk?

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1 pound per gallon with most cheeses

incredible. my aunt gave me this recipe no more than a week ago. the same exact thing....totally got me wanting to make cheese now too!

I'm up to two failures now. Yesterday, the milk curdled as soon as I added the citric acid. Turns out the measuring spoons my mom gave me are way off - the 1/4tsp one actually holds more like 1/2 tsp, so you can guess what happened there.

Today, everything went pretty smoothly but the curd was too runny, just like the pictures you see of what happens when you use ultra-pasteurized milk.

I really don't have the patience (or motivation) to keep failing at this while I try all the various brands of milk at the store here... But I may give it one last shot with the dry milk + cream method... So, if you (or anyone else) has good luck with that method I'd be interested in hearing about it!

Funkenjaeger said:

I'm up to two failures now. Yesterday, the milk curdled as soon as I added the citric acid. Turns out the measuring spoons my mom gave me are way off - the 1/4tsp one actually holds more like 1/2 tsp, so you can guess what happened there.

Today, everything went pretty smoothly but the curd was too runny, just like the pictures you see of what happens when you use ultra-pasteurized milk.

I really don't have the patience (or motivation) to keep failing at this while I try all the various brands of milk at the store here... But I may give it one last shot with the dry milk + cream method... So, if you (or anyone else) has good luck with that method I'd be interested in hearing about it!

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If it looked like this you should have just kept going, you still end up with pretty tasty cheese.

i don't think we have a source of real milk near us - so i'm looking at the powdered milk and cream method - does the cream itself have to be unpasteurized? or will any half+half or cream from the supermarket work because the majority of the liquid is powdered milk that is not pasteurized?

SuperiorBrew said:

If it looked like this you should have just kept going, you still end up with pretty tasty cheese.

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Yeah, that's pretty much what I got. I probably should have kept going, but I started trying to strain the soupy curd with the limited tools at my disposal, didn't have enough cheesecloth to do it properly, so it quickly turned into a mess and I wasn't recovering much of the curd so I tossed it.

If/when I try the cream/dry milk method, I'll plan on seeing it through to the end if at all possible, whether things are going smoothly or not, just to have some kind of closure

cd2448 said:

i don't think we have a source of real milk near us - so i'm looking at the powdered milk and cream method - does the cream itself have to be unpasteurized? or will any half+half or cream from the supermarket work because the majority of the liquid is powdered milk that is not pasteurized?

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According to:
http://www.cheesemaking.com/includes/modules/jWallace/OnLineNews/NewsFiles/MilkAbout.html#Anchor-11481

It is OK if the cream is UP[ed: ultra-pasteurized] because the calcium and protein curd making components will be found in the NFDM[ed: nonfat dry milk] portion.

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That is what i will be trying too, UHT cream and the powdered skim.
I did pick up a stainless ladle and a curd knife. I was using a slotted spoon and a long carving knife for cheddar and a butter knife for the mozzarella.

made it this morning - it didn't work out exactly right because i over-stirred and the curds didn't form as they do in those pics on cheesemaking.com, it looked more like cottage cheese, but... after microwaving and kneading i ended up with something recognizable as cheese, and mozerlla at that - woo hoo! it's going on some home made pizza tonight.

edit: just checked with superiorbrew's pic above - that's exactly how it looked. just press on, microwave, knead, microwave, knead. it works.

pizzas worked out great and while the cheese was ok - it was not quite the wow factor i was hoping for, i'll use either heavy cream + dry milk or hopefully all whole milk next time. it was quite edible, don't get me wrong, maybe some of the flavour got lost on the pizza!

next time i'm going to make the cheese then attempt to smoke it - smoked mozz. being a splendid thing. also going to make the ricotta for a full-on white pizza.

ps: i used ACME brand basic dry milk, that too might have been a mistake but it's all they had!

cd2448 said:

pizzas worked out great and while the cheese was ok - it was not quite the wow factor i was hoping for, i'll use either heavy cream + dry milk or hopefully all whole milk next time. it was quite edible, don't get me wrong, maybe some of the flavour got lost on the pizza!

next time i'm going to make the cheese then attempt to smoke it - smoked mozz. being a splendid thing. also going to make the ricotta for a full-on white pizza.

ps: i used ACME brand basic dry milk, that too might have been a mistake but it's all they had!

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For more flavor you will want to add some Lipase Powder I tried a 1/4 teaspoon in our last batch and you could notice it but i will try 1/2tsp on the next batch. Also we used heavy cream, next batch I will try half and half.

i think heavy cream is a good call. will try and pick up some lipase powder - i think the LHBS has some of these ingredients for cheese.

has anyone tried making the hard stuff?

Here is a photo of my first try. It melted great on my pizza...

http://csa-days.blogspot.com/2008/03/snow-and-food.html

I wonder what would happen if you used another form of acid to do this, like leon juice concentrate, or vinegar.

I remember watching a Good Eats episode, when Alton Brown made fresh cottage cheese with milk and some juice or vinegar. Don't remember now. I had meant to try it myself, but never got around to it. Seemed too easy to be true!