dense mozzarella

[Walrus]

Hi guys,
yesterday I successfully made my first cultured mozzarella from raw Jersey milk. The only problem I have with it is that the texture is a lot denser than it should be, smooth on cut. I read somewhere that excessive stretching can cause that and because it was my first stretched cheese, it took me longer due to unpreparedness for forming in hot whey (after a while I had to stop and take gloves, because my hands were burning) so the curds sat there longer then they normally would and I think I formed (played with) them longer then necessary (not knowing it causes harm).

Is my presumption correct, or is the density of my mozzarella caused by something else? How long can mozzarella be stored in fridge submerged in 5% brine?

The recipe I followed:

9l raw jersey milk
1/8 ts thermophilic culture
1/8 ts lipase

- heat up to 35°C (I prepared starter culture in 3 cups of 38°C milk and inoculated when I started to warm the milk, when the milk reached 35°C, I poured in the starter and mixed well)
- let acidify for 60-90 minutes - was looking for PH 6,4, but it dropped only to 6,53 so I moved on
- add lipase + wait for 10 minutes
- add rennet + 45 minutes
- cut the curd to 1,25 cm cubes and rest for 10 minutes
- heat up to 38°C and stir gently for 15 minutes
- rest 60 minutes
- drain to collander and cheddar in collander above hot whey (not touching the whey) to pH 5,2 (this took about 1,5 hour)
- cut to 2 cm cubes and form in hot whey (mine was around 82°C)
- cool in ice water afterwards for 15 minutes
- salt in 18% brine solution for 0,5-1 hour (I formed 200g balls)
- store in 4-5% brine solution

[mikekchar]

I don't have a lot of advice for you, unfortunately.  First, congratulations on making this tricky cheese :-)  Forming it well is an art, I think.

The main advice other people have given me is to treat it really gently (although some traditional makers go absolutely nuts with it -- I'll explain).  Remember that the curd is a matrix of protein with a kind of tiny honeycomb of whey and fat trapped inside.  Acidifying the cheese allows the calcium to come out, which makes the curd more flexible.  However, at the same time, it opens larger holes for the whey and fat to escape.  As you stretch the cheese, it opens those holes even more.  The trick is to kind of stretch the cheese, letting the whey and fat escape, but then wrap it back up in the cheese.  The result is a kind of layering of cheese, fat/whey, cheese, fat/whey, up through the body of the cheese.  Originally (more than 150 years ago) mozzarella was made with sheep's milk, which has a very high milk solid level.  Eventually they moved to water buffalo which has twice as much fat as protein.  The result is that the wrapped up whey is very much like cream.  Very good mozzarella literally gushes this cream when you cut it.  So far machines can't make the mozzarella well enough to get that consistency and it takes years of practice to get good at it.  It's probably one of the hardest cheeses to do well.

As I said, some producers go completely nuts with the curd.  If you look at "Alex the French guy"'s youtube channel, he has a (mostly not very good -- though he did his best) series on making mozzarella.  In it, he visits a good mozzarella producer.  They get a large tub, fill it with very hot water and then with a paddle whip up the mozzarella.  It's worth digging out that video and watching what they are doing.  Instead of being very careful and gentle, they move very quickly and wrap the mozzarella up.  I've meant to give this a try, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.  I think it's probably quite difficult to do well :-)

The other video I really recommend is the Buratta video from "Food Insider".  While it's buratta, not mozzarella, there are a couple of useful things to see.  Watch how they evaluate the curd.   It's probably the best video I've seen of it.  At the very end, the guy also makes a mozzarella rose (his signature) and I think this is worth it to see how an expert handles mozzarella.

One last thing.  Cow's milk mozzarella is normally called "fior di latte" or "flower of milk".  I think part of this is because you get the aroma of milk in the cheese.  However, my personal belief is that the forming of the cheese is creates a specific internal shape.  When you cut the cheese, you should be left with layers apon layers of cheese with whey in between.  It should resemble the petals of a flower.  It's actually easiest to see if you tear the cheese in half with your hands, for some reason.  Cutting it often squishes it.  However, very good cows milk mozzarella should be able to stand up to cutting as well.

I hope that helps you aim for something, even if I didn't tell you how to get there ;-)

[Walrus]

Thanks you for video tips, I will definitely watch it before making mozzarella again.

My mozzarella is hard to cut, similar to cutting 2-3 months aged gouda and the mass is very solid without any sign of layers. Maybe my whey was too hot and it melted together again while shaping. I also shaped it out of whey, so that might be the problem with layering whey and cheese while forming.

[Aris]

I read a manual about real Mozzarella and they heat and stretch the curds when it has a pH of 4.9. The low pH results in a soft Mozzarella. Here is the link to the manual https://dairyasia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Manual-on-the-Production-of-Traditional-Buffalo.pdf

[DeejayDebi]

If I understand you the issue is an overly dense cheese? Something closer to the density of a cheddar than a light mozzarella? That would be over cooking the curds. pH is a big thing but years before they had pH meters they used a test called "window Paining." After stretching for a bit The "window pane" test is done by stretching a bit of cheese to see if it tears apart or stays intact when stretched thin enough to see through it (like a window pane). If the dough fails the test, continue stretching until it is elastic enough to pass the test.

[Walrus]

Thank you for your reply. Yes, my problem is density - no layers at all, just one whole mass of cheese, which is quite sturdy. It acts like a mozzarella while heated (stretches infinitely) and has nice rich flavour, only texture is the problem. I assume I overdone it while stretching - the whole proxies took me about 10 minutes when the curds were sunk in the hot whey. Next time I will try to cook it as little as possible, only to form it.

I tried to store it in light 2-4% brine with calcium chloride and pH matching the cheese (around 5.0), but after a few days the mozzarella started to soften up on the outside and now there is a dreamlike layer on the brine. Do you have any recommendation on how to store mozzarella for more than few days? Will it melt in brine made from whey?

Thanks.

[mikekchar]

You need to set up the brine so that it has a similar pH and mineral content as the cheese.  Basically, if there is more of something in the cheese than the brine, the brine will suck it out.  If there is more of something in the brine than the cheese, the cheese will suck it in.

The main ones you need to consider your self is pH, calcium and sodium.    If your cheese is a pH of 5.0, then you want to have your brine around the same level.  You can add citric acid to make it match.  The other thing you can do is hold your whey from cheese making and then pasteurise it at about the same time you stretch your mozz.  Use that whey as your brine.  That way the brine has about the same pH as the cheese.

For calcium, you can add calcium chloride at about the same level that you used in the original milk.  To be honest, though, if you are using whey, I think you'll be fine.  Again, it should have about the same level.  Or, at least, that's been my experience.  I could get more technical here :-)  Basically calcium chloride has a different solubility curve at different temperatures than calcium phosphate (the calcium that's naturally present in milk).  So it's kind of complicated.  But, like I said, my experience is that with whey I don't need to add any and with water, I'll add a couple of drops.

For sodium, it's tricky.  You want to add salt to the brine, but you need to make sure that the cheese is properly salted or else you'll get that exchange happening, which essentially dissolves you cheese.  For something like feta I would salt the outside of the cheese and let it sit for a few days before adding it to the brine.  For mozz...  It's tricky.  I think I would add salt to the water you use when you cool down the mozz.  Hot cheese absorbs salt quickly.  Then in your brine, don't salt it too much.  Try to match the salt level of the cheese.

Keep in mind that mozzarella is a very fresh cheese.  It's really intended to be consumed the day or so after it's made.  It's like bread.  Day old bread is a good bakery is basically given away or sold at a steep discount.  If you go to France, you'll see that people are lining up outside the boulangerie at 7 am to buy bread for the day (and then again at 3 pm for bread for dinner!).  Mozzarella is the same kind of thing.

[Aris]

My recent Buffalo mozzarella were soft and moist ever since I started letting the milk set for 90 minutes and stirring the curds for 5 minutes at less than 98 F. I then remove the whey and transfer the curds in a stock pot and let it drain with its whey. I remove some whey from the stock pot for Ricotta. All those things ensures the curd remains soft and full of moisture. I don't cheddar because it will remove some whey from the curds and make it firmer. Of course getting the perfect pH and the way you handle it is also important. I use 190-200 f water when heating and stretching the curd.