Author Topic: Mozzerella trouble  (Read 2796 times)

Batta

  • Guest
Mozzerella trouble
« on: January 13, 2013, 07:23:20 PM »
Hello, I'm a new member here and I'm having trouble with my mozzarella. I'm basically folowing this recipe to the letter:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Great-Mozzarella-Cheese/?ALLSTEPS

I know the internet is probably not the best place for instructions but its all I have at the present time.
My biggest trouble is I never have gotten the clean break. It always curds but never uniform its always a clumpy mess and theres nothing to cut. The resulting cheese isn't to bad but I can't help but think it could be better. I'm using fresh milk straight out of the cow instead of store bought.

If you guys wouldn't mind looking over the recipe that I have. Let me know if you see anything I could try differently.

I should add that I have made a cheddar and got the clean break. Its not done aging yet but I think it will be OK based on how the recipe said it should go.

Thanks in advance Batta

mjr522

  • Guest
Re: Mozzerella trouble
« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2013, 10:09:56 PM »
I'm no expert, but there are a few things that come to mind that might be causing problems here.  The first is that I have read (but haven't experienced myself) that some rennet tablets are not particularly good for cheese making.  Don't know if that's entirely accurate, as I said I've never tried anything with tablets.  Another thing is that, at least for liquid rennet and I believe this holds for tablet/powdered, as well, you want to use cool water (the recipe doesn't mention this) and you don't want it sitting around too long before it gets used.  If you used warm water and then let it sit for 30 minutes as you continue to heat up the milk (as the recipe seems to suggest you do), the activity of the rennet will be reduced.

Is your milk really directly from the cow?  If it's raw milk that isn't really fresh, it might have too much acid in it.  I had that happen once with some "fresh" goat milk that was actually a few days old.  After adding the rennet and stirring a bit, I could see little flecks showing up in the milk.  After letting it sit, there was definitely a curd, but it was rough and tough, not smooth.  This was because I had too much acid.  If this is the problem, try reducing the amount of citric acid you add.

I also don't know why the recipe calls to dissolve some of the acid and sprinkle some onto the milk directly--I'm just not sure why you'd do that.

Those are my thoughts.  Someone else might have better suggestions.

Finally, you might want to check out some of the recipes on the forum and use them, instead.

Batta

  • Guest
Re: Mozzerella trouble
« Reply #2 on: January 13, 2013, 11:44:22 PM »
Thank you for your reply. I took the milk out of the bulk tank on Tuesday and used it on Sunday. So it did have a few days in the fridge. I may have to try cutting back on the citric acid and see what happens.

As for the rennet I bought it from cheesemaking.com so I'm asuming it should be ok for cheese. It did fine in my cheddar.

I think I will take your advice and use some of the recipe's posted here for the next batch.

MrsKK

  • Guest
Re: Mozzerella trouble
« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2013, 10:59:46 PM »
Yeah, that's not fresh from the cow milk.  I milk one cow, store the milk in dated gallon glass jars and have not had any luck making mozzarella from milk that is any more than 4 days old.  If your bulk tank was emptied on Tuesday before you took the milk out, it was still five days old when you made your cheese.  That's a lot of acidity already there.

Next time, try making it the same day you take the milk from the tank.

Batta

  • Guest
Re: Mozzerella trouble
« Reply #4 on: January 15, 2013, 11:00:52 PM »
I'll give that a try and see what happens.