I'm beside myself. I had made 10-15 cheeses with no problem -- mostly mozzarella, but some cream cheese and fetas. Even a Wensleydale. I was about to branch into red-mold cheeses, but this week has stopped everything.
My last 3 attempts at mozzarella have been complete failures. I had always gotten my milk from Whole Foods; it's local, and more likely to be fresh. I bought new citric acid, since I was out (but citric acid is citric acid). Failure one -- the milk curdled as I added the acid, and although I proceeded, the curd never became "stretchy" like it needed to. It was very grainy.
Try two. Different milk from local grocery store, organic, but no idea where from. I chose to use some meso I had. Better luck -- no curdle in the beginning -- but the end result was grainy, barely stretchy, and I ended up making cheese that looked like heads of cauliflower or brains because it was again, grainy.
Try three, tonight. Used that same "different" milk, another new order of citric acid...and it curdled as I added it.
Three different batches -- three different wrong results. I've never had a problem making cheese, much less mozzarella. I've got to solve this before I try the more laborious ones, because I don't want to waste my time.
Any thoughts? Any idea why I'm getting such a quick curdle?