Mozzarella Madness

We started out to make some mozzarella this morning with hopes of having fresh mozzarella to go with the tomatoes that are rolling off the vines in great numbers.

Several years ago we read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and loved her description of making homemade mozzarella.  Shortly after that, one of Cindy's Master Gardener friends invited us to help experiment with a couple of different 30-minute mozzarella recipes, and we had a great time doing that.  We had tried it once or twice at home successfully since that time, so we thought we knew what we were doing.

Not Quite There

After a long hunt for the citric acid, which was hiding at the very back of the fridge, we assembled the ingredients, including a gallon of whole milk, the elusive citric acid, lipase and rennet and set to work.

Unfortunately, the whey never became clear and the curds never really separated from the whey.

We reluctantly dumped that lot and tried to figure out what went wrong with it.  Cindy's engineer Dad would probably have said, "Test the variables" if we had consulted him, so we decided to look at those.

Curds Looking Better This Time

The first variable we considered was the milk, which can be pasteurized, but not ultra-pasteurized, because the temperatures used in the ultra-pasteurization process are too high to allow cheese curds to form.

So Cindy trekked off to the store, bought a different brand gallon of whole milk, and we tried it again, but got the same result.  The curds were a little firmer the second time, but never got quite firm enough to make proper mozzarella.

Cindy decided to save this second batch and make ricotta this time.

Stretching It Out

So, it was off to the store one more time.  For the third batch we decided to use a recipe from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company that did not use lipase, because the lipase was a year past its expiration date, which was sort of a clue that it might be the culprit.

This time the curds formed up beautifully and Cindy was able to knead and stretch it into one big, shiny, smooth ball.

That's The Way It's Supposed To Look

Then we chilled it and formed it into five smaller balls.  We'll have one with the tomatoes tonight.  Yum!

Fresh Mozzarella For Dinner!