Yesterday I mentioned I was going to make mozzarella cheese. Well this is how it turned out. Now I'm a total novice at cheese-making. I've made ricotta cheese twice before and that's all. I've always fancied having a go at mozzarella, especially as I enjoy making homemade pizzas fairly frequently.
I used my Mad Millie Italian Beginners Cheese Kit again, which provides the steriliser solution to clean all my utensils and pan prior to starting. It includes the citric acid, calcium chloride, and the rennet which I added to the raw milk at certain stages of heating the milk/curds.
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| Cutting the curd |
I'm not exactly sure why my mozzarella came out with the texture it did. If you look closely at the top picture you can see it looks a little grainy in places instead of smooth and shiny all over. Whether I didn't stir it enough during the heating process, or heated it too quickly, I'm not sure. Or maybe it was some other factor.
Any tips from more experienced cheese makers?
In any case, the cheese was just fine on the pizzas. And I still have this much again left over. While it was reasonably time consuming, I would definitely make it again. And the chooks love the whey!
I've found with the mozzarella I may need to heat it 2 or 3 times while stretching it. I Only ever make a half batch (2L milk) as it makes sooo much.
ReplyDeleteHi Liz, thanks for that tip, I was doing this towards the end but maybe I needed to do it some more.
ReplyDeleteYes, the 4L recipe made way too much really..will do the 1/2 next time!
thanks a lot Bridget
I like The Greening Of Gavin blog for Cheesemaking hints although I think he may have separated the cheese posts to another blog now? Anyway he has made some great little tutorials and has almost tipped me over into making cheese. At this stage it's just one more thing and I am really having to divide my energies. Of course if I stopped reading so many blogs I would have more time but then I wouldn't be learning all the time!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I really admire you having a go and it has me salivating.
Thanks Tanya, I will check it out.
ReplyDeleteJust been looking at your lovely soaps. I made a batch of castille soap it is very sticky for some reason. Must try the tallow recipe as I have some in the freezer.
that is amazing! I would LOVE to make home made mozzarella. did you find sheeps milk? .. actually you probably did.. you are not short of sheep in NZ are you?
ReplyDeleteHi Matron, you're right re the sheep :-)!! But I actually used raw cow's milk (not ours) for this cheese. Not sure if anyone has water buffalo around here unfortunately!
ReplyDeleteveggiegobbler has a post about mozzarella cheese, which mentions adding more rennet to make the cheese turn into mozzarella rather than ricotta, which kind of sounds what my cheese was doing. Will have to try this out next time round.
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