Caprese is easy with home made cheese

30 minute Mozzarella

I have yet to try this but it looks pretty easy! 

Thanks for the link.  I am DEFINITELY going to try this!   

GG

Wow! I bookmarked this, will print it later. Must. Try!

I tried the recipe for homemade Mozzarella last night. My first attempt ever at making cheese. I may become addicted. It was fascinating and delicious. I won't say it went off without a hitch...after additional research, I think the recipe may have a small flaw, or perhaps it was the Cheese maker,   next batch will tell more. Regardless, the end result is wonderful. It made 1 lb. of fresh mozzarella from 1 gal of whole milk. I then recooked the leftover whey (lots of leftover whey) to make 6 oz. of old fashioned Italian whey Ricotta. It has tiny, tiny solid curds with a very thick, almost creamy texture if let drain for several hours. Very different from store bought Ricotta. Unbelievably yummy and very rich. The leftover, leftover again whey from the Ricotta (still lots of leftover whey) I froze in ice cube trays to use later in baking. The picture only shows half the yield of the mozzarella I made. Half of it got eaten last night before I could take a photo. We made pizza with our own canned pizza sauce, homemade mozzarella and fresh picked garden veggies. While we waited for the pizza to bake, (we couldn't wait any longer to try the warm cheese) we made an impromptu Caprese with tomato and basil fresh from the garden. Too Yummy!!! 

 

lyndeloo that looks so good. What kind of flaw? I would like to make my own mozzarella too and was trying to decide on a recipe to start out with. Where did you get your Rennet from, local or online? How did you make the Ricotta, do you just cook down the whey or do you have to add anything to it?

WOW!!! That looks and sounds wonderful!! 

  

Can you post the recipe or the link to the ricotta recipe?  It all sounds yummy!

GG

It has been 22+ years since I last did this but I got the itch again so I ordered a Mozzarella kit online. I did this after I could not find any one local carrying cheese making rennet and realizing I had been using my dairy thermometer to measure the compost piles heat  . I also ordered some lipase to add flavor because I would not be using cultured milk.

It is very yummy.
Make sure not to use ultra pasteurized milk, but you can use reconstituted dry milk. The directions say you can not use the whey from this for riccotta, I disagree because I just got a nice precipitate of curds to strain after heating hte whey to near boiling.

Goosegirl wrote:  

Can you post the recipe or the link to the ricotta recipe?  It all sounds yummy!

GG

http://schmidling.com/making.htm

No association, and I've made the cottage/ricotta recipe many times. Jack is an old school home beer brewer and cheese maker in Illinois.

Bill

TxGramma wrote:lyndeloo that looks so good. What kind of flaw? I would like to make my own mozzarella too and was trying to decide on a recipe to start out with. Where did you get your Rennet from, local or online? How did you make the Ricotta, do you just cook down the whey or do you have to add anything to it?  

I used the Mozzarella recipe from this topic, which is simple and easy to follow. It will take more than half an hour, at least the first time. I followed the directions carefully and no curds initially, I added more citric acid later to try to salvage the cheese. Luckily it worked. After a lot  of online research, I believe the first addition (Citric Acid) should be put in at 80 degrees instead of 55 degrees. Then allow the mixture to rest at 80 degrees for 10-15 minutes, turn off and on or adjust heat as needed to maintain 80 degrees. Then bring temp up slowly and add Rennet at 88 degrees. Let mixture rest again. Stir only if absolutely necessary once you start to see curds. Follow the rest of the recipe as is.

The whey ricotta recipe is very easy. Basically heat the whey to 200 degrees and let the curds form and strain it. I found the recipe online in Instructables.com How to make great ricotta from whey. Sorry I don't know how to link to it.

I searched around for the rennet, tough to find it around here, so I ordered it online. I used Junket rennet in tablet form. Very inexpensive, costs more to ship it. A little goes a long way, but I ordered extra to make it worth the shipping costs. Some Walmart stores may carry it according to online info, but not near me. You can also buy rennet in liquid form from cheese making supply stores. TxGramma PM me about rennet.

I think my first attempt at cheese making was really worth the effort and plan to keep at it.

lyndeeloo, thank you so much for the reply. And thanks for sharing your learning experience. There is so much info available to us now with internet access so it is nice to have feedback from someone who has already tried out a recipe or process when you attempt something the first time like cheese making. Can't wait to try my hand at making my own cheese. Now just have to gather all the supplies I need. Sending you a PM now. Thanks again.

lyndeeloo wrote:[
I used the Mozzarella recipe from this topic, which is simple and easy to follow. It will take more than half an hour, at least the first time. I followed the directions carefully and no curds initially, I added more citric acid later to try to salvage the cheese. Luckily it worked. After a lot  of online research, I believe the first addition (Citric Acid) should be put in at 80 degrees instead of 55 degrees. Then allow the mixture to rest at 80 degrees for 10-15 minutes, turn off and on or adjust heat as needed to maintain 80 degrees. Then bring temp up slowly and add Rennet at 88 degrees. Let mixture rest again. Stir only if absolutely necessary once you start to see curds. Follow the rest of the recipe as is.

~

I searched around for the rennet, tough to find it around here, so I ordered it online. I used Junket rennet in tablet form.

Lyndeeloo, the junket rennet is probably why you had problems. It is much less concentrate than cheese rennet. Cheese rennet is 80% chymosin and 20% pepsin. Junket is 80% pepsin. Try tripling or quadrupling the amount used. You can add the citric acid while the milk is cold, but not the rennet, that needs to be at 88-90.

The acid causes one form of curd and helps others form (think of yogurt, the acid is what makes the yogurt soft solid curd, we are using citric acid instead of making a yogurt first). The rennet then adds to that and firms it all up.

I used a quarter tab of cheese rennet to set a gallon of milk and it worked fine. I am going to try the half tab, like in the recipe this threads starts with, next time to compare.

mrwes40 wrote:
http://schmidling.com/making.htm

No association, and I've made the cottage/ricotta recipe many times. Jack is an old school home beer brewer and cheese maker in Illinois.

Bill

A wonderful link! I loved his fiber page as well.

Thanks Turan, I'll try that. Can't wait to make more. Can Mozzarella be frozen in a block after it's made? I'd like to make a few batches and store it until needed if possible.

lyndeeloo wrote:Thanks Turan, I'll try that. Can't wait to make more. Can Mozzarella be frozen in a block after it's made? I'd like to make a few batches and store it until needed if possible.

I never tried it but think it would work well. I freeze store bought mozzarella all the time and it is not harmed by the experience. I would not store our citric acid cheese long term in the fridge. It is lacking the good cultures that make an aged cheese wonderful. Instead it seems likely you will get other cultures developing that are not so wonderful. Freezing would be better even if the quality did change some.

I bought the mozzarella kit. Works great, even screwed up the recipe forgetting the citric acid and added it with the rennet and things still turned out okay.

I also have a cheese making book that as three different recipes for mozzarella, the mesophilic and thermophilic bacteria add-ins. Not much variation other than longer sitting times.

Got another jug of milk for another batch tonight. Slowly checking around Sprouts and Whole Foods looking for cream line milk.

Oh no, Whole Foods carries 100% pastured grass fed cream line vat pasteurized whole milk from Jersey cows.

It was yellow. The whole bottle had the color of a supermarket stick of butter. It's shipped in from northern Cal, Sonoma area. Scary expensive, $4.99/liter.

It's very good, has a different tang to it kind of like the different tang to grass fed beef.

Tomorrow I'll make another 1/2 gallon batch using the grass fed milk from Holsteins from WF. It's grass fed from NorCal to. According to the label, Humboldt county, I hope they kept the grass straight.  

Then back to the plain old WF whole milk.

For a three way taste comparison.

Last week when I measured yield of mozzarella and ricotta cheese for a 2 gallon batch (1 gallon raw milk and 1 gallon low temp pasteurized store milk). The expected yield would be close to 2 pounds of mozzarella and then a bit of ricotta. Instead there was a pound of each. So I have been pondering why. I figured the ricotta making is scavenging all available milk proteins so it is a great follow up. I wondered if the raw milk was the reason for the low yield because of something I read somewhere some when  

Today I wanted to make mozzarella balls for an antipasto to take to a potluck dance party. So I pasteurized the raw milk in the way I had back when I had goats. I heated it in a double boiler to 165 degrees. Then to cool it down I poured in a gallon of cold store milk. The curds became like cottage cheese and will not melt and pull.

So I went looking through the website at the FAQ. O my. I have been over heating the milk when pasteurizing! No wonder.

So I added in the ricotta, added chopped basil and garlic and chives and olives and a dollop of Greek yogurt and beat it up. I will serve it with crackers.
I forgot to weigh it.... next week I will try again and try to be more focused.

When given "cottage cheese", make a delicious dip!

Bump
Did anyone else try to make mozzarella? I'm thinking of Thanksgiving and making some kind of "home made' snack.