3rd Time is The Charm-Mozarrella

Last Sunday, after running to the store Saturday night to get more whole milk from a local dairy and not Kroger, I made some more mozzarella. 

The ingredients I used are as follows:

• 1 Gallon Trauth Farms Dairy Whole Milk
• 1 1/2 tsp Citric Acid diluted in 1 Cup cool water
• 1/4 tsp Rennet diluted in 1/4 cup cool water
• 1 tsp canning salt

I first heated the citric acid and 1 gallon milk to 90 degrees  (this took about 15 minutes), I then took the milk off the burner and I gently stirred in the diluted rennet. 

After this I covered the warm milk and let it sit for about 10 minutes.  The curds and the whey separated much more than the last time I did this.  At this point I was able to make a clean break.  I then cut the curds into about 1 inch cubes with a long knife.

Next I heated the curds to 105 degrees while gently stirring every once in awhile.  Once it reached 105 I took it off the burner and began scooping the thick curds out with a slotted spoon into a colander.  Using my rubber gloves I drained as much whey out as possible before putting it into a microwave safe glass bowl.  Jenelle was amazed of how the curds kept leaking whey.

I then put it into the microwave for 1 minute taking it out and kneading the cheese.  I then nuked it for 35 seconds and kneaded again (I did this step a total of three times).  Draining the whey each time.

The next part was fun, I started stretching the cheese like taffy, it was really stretchy as you can see.  At this time I also added the salt.  After stretching it till it got a little shiny I made the mozzarella into a little ball.

It tasted really good, though Jenelle thought it was too firm for Fresh Mozzarella..  Here is a picture of the final product.

I tried to make some ricotta from the whey but I got some much curds for the mozzarella that there really was not much left for ricotta.

We ate the cheese with some tomatoes and also used it on some pizza later in the week (see below)

I will hopefully be ordering some cultures soon so I can start making different cheeses, the only problem is that I will not know if I was successful until months later after I have let the cheese age.