Making Fresh Mozzarella

[Quadrupled]

The other day my girls and I made mozzarella for the first time. Although it was fun and tasted nice, it was a little watery and the texture was a little more rubbery than what I'm used to for store-bought fresh mozzarella and would like some suggestions to improve it.

I'm unsure if our disappointment is the "recipe", the procedure, our technique or something else.

We used the 30 minute Riki's kit and, to the best of my knowledge, followed the instructions well, except for our whey draining and potential over kneading. We used Kilgus Farmstead non-homogenized milk plus 1 pint of Kilgus heavy whipping cream.

1.5 tsp citric acid
Heat to 90F
Remove from burner
Add 1/4 cup rennet solution (prepared earlier)
Rest 5 minutes
Check curd - it was custardy but the whey was still a bit milky
Cut with knife
Heat to 105F while gently stirring
Remove from burner while gently stirring for 2 minutes
Poured off as much whey as possible and transferred to glass bowl with slotted spoon
Heated in microwave for 1 min
Poured off whey
Added 1 tsp salt
Heated in microwave 30 sec
Poured off whey
Repeated 3 more times while trying to knead/stretch
Chilled in cool water followed by ice water

Thanks in advance.

 

[Bensiff]

IDK, I'm no expert, but perhaps the microwave may be the problem.

 

[Heavywalker]

How old is your rennet, is it tablet or liquid? How was it stored prior to you recieving it.

I have to tell you that I have never had any luck with the rennet that comes with a kit, I have always just thrown it out and bought some that I knew was fresh. Tablet rennet should be stored in the freezer and most places just leave it in the box on the shelf at room temp.

I would also wait more than 5 min before cutting the curd, I wait about 30 min. If you don't get a clean break leave it be until you do.

Clean break should look like this, if it doesn't look like this let it go longer, if your rennet is bad it may never set up.



Microwaving is not an issue, it is just a way to heat the cheese up to get it to stretch. Also do more stretching than kneading. I also skip the ice water bath and just wrap it in plastic and put it in the fridge to cool.

 

[Bensiff]

See, he is much more fancy than me ...perhaps bad renet is why my last attempt failed, or it was the Costco milk

 

[Heavywalker]

Milk can be the culprit, if you are not using UN-homogenized milk or if your milk is ultra pasteurized it can cause a failed batch. The usual culprit is homogenized milk, homogenization keeps the cream from separating from the whey, you can use it but you should really add some calcium chloride to the milk before heating. Adding calcium chloride will help the cream separate but you also will get a slightly lower yield and your Mozz will not be as stretchy.

 

[Quadrupled]

Thanks for the replies and suggestions.

Well the rennet tablets came with the kit and its the cheesemaking.com material. My former manager makes cheese and he steered me to that site since he's had success. Definitely no expiration or manufacturing date on the rennet.

I'll give the curd 30 minutes to set next time - it set up pretty stiffly but I'll certainly look to see if the whey clears more since ours was still somewhat milky.

Regarding the milk, it was certainly not homogenized there were large yellow butter-like clumps. It was the first time I've seen non-homogenized milk and I kept smelling the bottle to make sure it hadn't gone bad.

 

[Heavywalker]

It is not so much if the whey is milky or not, but you need a clean break. After you let you curd set up stick your finger in the curd, at this point it should be one solid mass not clumpy or chunky, when you pull your finger out of the curd it should break and your finger will come out clean. This is what you need before you move on to the next step in the process. If you don't get this right the rest is an exercise if futility.

 

[Quadrupled]

Great, I'll make sure I check this. Where do you buy your rennet ?

 

[Heavywalker]

I buy mine at my LHBS, they stock stuff for cheese making as well. Any of the online suppliers, midwest, or cheesemaking.com, etc... will work if you order rennet by itself. They will keep the rennet individually in the proper conditions but the kits come pre-assembled from the distributor and the rennet is already in them. Most of these kits just sit on a shelf a room temp and go bad before someone buys them. I would also recommend getting the liquid rennet as most people don't think of storing the tablets in the freezer because, well, who stores tablets in the freezer. Liquid rennet can be stored in the fridge, and most places store it properly.

 

[EMG]

Hi Quadrupled,

I'm a new poster but an experienced home cheese maker. Hope I can help:

Non-homogenized milk is important for cheese making. Also, make sure your cream is not Ultra pasteurised.

First thing to point out, the recipe you followed looks like a short cut version of traditional mozz. It won't taste the same no matter how careful you are in each steps. What you need for a traditional mozz is a thermophilic starter (can be found in yogurt) instead of citric acid.

The addition of Calcium chloride would have helped for a stronger curd. There's also a technique called Flocculation point, that very simple and takes the guessing game out of the coagulation step. I could explain it in a thread of it's own if it has not yet been discussed in these forums.

As for the moistness of you final product: that can be the result of improper cutting of the curd. It's up to you to decide how moist you like your mozz, but generally, the curd should be uniformaly cut at about 1/2" cubes.

The rubbery texture may be the cooking/stirring step: When you raise the temp to 105F, only raise by 2F every 5 minutes. Don't stop stirring, but at the same time, stir very slowly. The point of stirring is to try to encourage the whey to expel itself from the curd by bumping one again each other. It's kind of important to not break the curds with your stirring motion during this process. So be very very gentle and make sure the cubes don't mat together. Overstiring can result in a rubbery texture.

Anyways, I hope this helps a bit. I know I'm coming in late in the convo, but still, good luck with your next batch.