Okay folks! After the great feed back on How to Make Yogurt and How to Make Laundry Detergent, I’m finally getting to the highly requested tutorial on …
How to Make Mozzarella Cheese
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If you’ve never done this, you should absolutely give it at try… You’ll feel like Martha Stewart. Or Ma Ingalls. Or George Stephanapoulos.
Whatever, it’s very cool.
What you will need:
Rennet, either liquid or tablets (can be found at most Health Food Stores in the refrigerator section)
Citric Acid (again, found at most Health Food Stores)
Non-chlorinated Water
Gallon of Whole Milk (NOT ultra pasteurized, ie not organic milk)
candy thermometer (that shows temperatures below 200 degrees)
pickling salt
Cheese Cloth
Colander
2 pots (not aluminum)
slotted spoon
Optional: rubber gloves
First, add either 1/4 teaspoon liquid rennet OR 1/4 rennet tablet into a 1/4 Cup of cool, non-chlorinated water. If you are using the tablet rennet, stir until it’s dissolved. Store the remainder as per the packaging.
Next, add 1.5 teaspoons of citric acid into 1 Cup of cool, non-chlorinated water and stir until it’s dissolved.
Now pour the gallon of milk into your pot, and then stirring vigorously, add the citric acid solution. Turn on the burner, and while continuing to stir, heat the milk up to 90 degrees. This won’t take long… 3 – 5 minutes.
Remove the pot from the burner and slowly pour in the rennet solution, mixing it with your slotted spoon an up and down motion for 30 seconds.
The rennet will cause the two components of milk (curds and whey) to separate, so you want to make sure it’s evenly distributed, but don’t over do it.
After the rennet is incorporated, cover the pot and let it sit for 5 – 7 minutes.
After waiting, you should see that the curds and whey are separated. Ideally it will look like custard, but sometimes it will look like ricotta cheese (I probably stirred too much after I added the rennet, oops!)…
…whichever way it looks, you should see a clear distinction between the curds (solid components) and the whey (which is a yellowish liquid). If this separation hasn’t happened yet, give it a little more time. If it never happens, than you probably used Ultra Pasteurized milk which won’t work. Start over!
If your curds look like custard, use a long knife that reaches to the bottom of the pot… gently cut up the curd-custard in lots of different directions so that you have little cubes of curd floating in whey.
Then slowly reheat the curds and whey until it reaches 110 degrees, stirring gently.
If you got the ricotta version, you obviously don’t need to cut it up… but still stir gently over heat until it gets to 110.
Now you want to separate the curds from the whey. In order to do this, line a colander with cheese cloth and get out a second pot.
I then put the colander inside the pot…
… and slowly pour the curds/whey mixture in. Then simply lift the colander out, and tada! Curds in one place and whey in the other (Miss Muffet would be so proud!).
Keep the curds to the side and heat up the whey to 180 degrees.
Once the whey is hot, remove it from the heat. Then put the colander with curds down into the hot whey.
Optional: sprinkle onto the curds 1 – 2 Tablespoons of cheese salt
Now, PUT ON YOUR RUBBER GLOVES (do as I say, not as I do…. trust me, this stuff will be HOT) and grab a handful of the curds.
what you want to do is knead the curds with your hands… almost like silly putty.
After about 15 seconds, the curds will cool down and you need to dunk it back into the hot whey.
Then start kneading again. After two or three passes, you’ll start to notice that the curds become more stringy, stretching almost like taffy. If it’s not there yet, give it another dunk in the hot whey (the curds need to be 135 degrees to stretch properly)…
Stop once the curds are smooth and shiny. Shape it into a ball and set aside (or, if you want it to retain a certain shape, drop the curds into ice water for a few minutes).
Then go back and grab another handful of curds and start stretching again. Before you know it, you’ll have a whole plate of homemade mozzarella!
The only problem with that around my house is that is won’t last very long!
If you want to store your cheese, you can keep it in the refrigerator for up to two weeks in an air tight container or wrapped in plastic. You can also freeze it and defrost when you’re ready to use it!
Enjoy! And happy cheese making.
Click here to see the recipe in PDF format (without all the pictures!)
If you are looking for some other simple home made tutorials be sure to check out How to Make Gummi Bears, a simple homemade Chocolate Syrup, and a delicious (and easy) Snack Bar recipe.
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How to Make Mozarella
