Help with mozzarella please.

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freakynorm

Meat Mopper
Original poster
Aug 4, 2012
181
35
Mount Vernon, Washington
I tried making some fresh mozzarella today. I picked up some raw whole milk from the co-op and did the normal recipe. Citric acid, heat, rennet, rest, cut curd, etc. After draining it, I set it in a bowl and poured whey over it that was heated to 185F. I let it sit about 20 seconds and went to stretch it out but it was very stiff and not stretching very well. I watched a lot of videos and generally, people would pull the curd from the heated whey and gravity would just let it stretch out. It was also very yellow, which I think was due to the diet of the cows. The milk itself had a yellow tinge to it.

After stretching it, I molded it into 2 balls and it was very hard to rip apart. I let the 2 pieces rest in some salted whey for 15 minutes. The taste was ok. It could use a bit more salt. I've watched other videos of people salting the cheese directly while stretching it. I will try it that way next time. I put it on a homemade pizza and it melted just fine and tasted fine, but I was looking to get a softer, looser melt to it like you seen on a neopolitan pizza.

The first batch is in the pics I attached. The curd was a bit loose on the first batch for some reason. The second batch it was very firm and a lot whiter in appearance. Not sure why there was such a difference between the two. The end results were identical though in every aspect.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

20210927_164812.jpg 20210927_170040.jpg 20210927_171056.jpg 20210927_182322.jpg 20210927_183310.jpg
 
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Here is a step by step that I did a few years ago on making Mozzarella.
Al
 
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Here is a step by step that I did a few years ago on making Mozzarella.

Thank you Al. I was going to look for this and post it when I saw the title of the thread but you're on top of it.

Al's is a great recipe and the tutorial is perfection. This makes some darned fine cheese. now...on a different note, if you like garlic dill pickles, you might want to give his a look also. Been making them for a couple years now and they are fantastic!!

Robert
 
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Here is a step by step that I did a few years ago on making Mozzarella.
Al
Hey Al,

Why does the water need to be non chlorinated? What did you use distilled or just any bottled water? Mine also came out hard but I atributed it to possibly high pasturized milk. Next time I will look at trader joes or Whole foods for some organic whole ilk?
 
Hey Al,

Why does the water need to be non chlorinated? What did you use distilled or just any bottled water? Mine also came out hard but I atributed it to possibly high pasturized milk. Next time I will look at trader joes or Whole foods for some organic whole ilk?

I used distilled water, apparently the chlorine stops the process from working correctly. Not sure what the science behind it is, but I know for sure that distilled water works best. For the milk, we just use Borden’s whole milk. As long as it doesn’t say super pasteurized your OK. Although I would think that fresh milk from a dairy farmer would be the absolute best option. Good luck,
Al
 
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I used distilled water, apparently the chlorine stops the process from working correctly. Not sure what the science behind it is, but I know for sure that distilled water works best. For the milk, we just use Borden’s whole milk. As long as it doesn’t say super pasteurized your OK. Although I would think that fresh milk from a dairy farmer would be the absolute best option. Good luck,
Al
Thanks, no cows here on Long Island that I know about.
 
I will add that we have made mozz following Al's tutorial with great success! But we used liquid rennet and I think it loses it's potency. The last couple tries didn't work out so well but have gotten new so looking forward to make more!

Ryan
 
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