Different Milk, Different Results

I have made homemade Mozzarella several times now, each time I have had to adapt a little from the recipe I was following because I could never get the cheese to set enough.  Some things I have had to do were letting the mozzarella set after putting in the rennett longer than the 5 minutes the recipe called for (I was letting it set for as much as 20 minutes).  I have also had to let the mozzarella drain in a hung cheesecloth.  I had to do this to get the mozzarella dry enough to handle.  After talking to the Specialty Cheese Category Manager at work he said I should try Snowville Dairy milk since it has not been homogenized.  So I decided to try it.  I had to go to a grocery store a little ways away to get it and it was $7.00 for a gallon of this milk, so a little expensive for my blood.  I thought I would try it and see if it was worth the extra money.

Ingredients used, you can see the Snowville Dairy milk

Ingredients:

• 1 Gallon Whole Milk
• 1 1/2 tsp citric acid diluted in 1 cup cool water
• 1/4 tsp Rennett diluted in 1/4 cup water
• 1 tsp salt

-First mix well the milk and citric acid in pot, heat milk mixture to 90 degrees
    -take off heat and add Rennet carefully, stirring very gently in a up and down motion.
-Let milk set 7 minutes

You can see a much better clean break from this Snowville Dairy milk

-Cut curds into 1/2 inch cubes
-Heat to 105 degrees stirring gently
    -you are suppose to do this so the cheese does not knit back together, in the past my curds were not strong enough to knit back together so I did not do it, this time however with the better milk they did knit back together, so make sure to stir gently.

-After you reach 105 degrees turn off heat and let it set for 5 minutes
-Next ladle curds with a slotted spoon into a microwave safe bowl
   -Pour off as much whey as possible, form mozzarella into a ball
-Knead curds (wear globes the cheese is hot)

Me kneading the curds, you can see all the whey leaving the curds

-Microwave for 1 minute, take out and knead cheese
-Microwave for 30 seconds (two times) each time taking out and kneading cheese
-Add salt and start the fun part of stretching the cheese like taffy.  Do this until it starts to cool and has a nice sheen, then form into a ball.

Me having fun with pulling the cheese like taffy

My Snowville Dairy homemade mozzarella ball

 My wife grabbed some tomatoes from our fridge (store bought) and we ate cheese and tomatoes, but then I went to the garden and got a fresh tomato.  You can see the difference, the garden tomato is the darker red one and it tasted so much better.

Yummy tomatoes and mozzarella, plus my wife had some pesto she had bought to go with it.

All in all it was a more successful cheese making then I have had in the past.  Using the Snowville Dairy milk that had not been homogenized really helped with getting a really good clean break, however the taste of this mozzarella was not much different then my past ones, so I do not think I will make it a habit to use this much more expensive milk.  I guess if I ever make a video on how to make home made mozzarella or was asked to teach a few people I might buy it so I can show them how it is suppose to work, but most likely I will just continue to use the cheaper milk I have found locally.

Also this weekend I made a Spanish cheese called Manchego.  I lived in Spain for 2 years so I was excited to make this cheese, also it only takes a few days to age for Manchego Fresco, but you can let it age longer for a stronger flavor, look again soon to see how that went.

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