Another Mozzarella Post! (Cultured and Non-Cultured Questions)

[AnnDee]

I am going through my pictures to try and look for low PH stretched curd and I couldn't find it, but this is a picture of a stretch curd on correct PH (around 5.0). My mozzarella curd usually stretch without being grainy until PH 4.9, I try to stretch when the PH around 5.0 (or as close to it as possible).

[Rain Frances]

Hi Ann

My big problem is I don't have the tools for checking the PH (yet!!! I ordered a meter today). I guess it's hit and miss for me at this point. Thanks for letting me know about the low PH. My 30-minute Mozzarella is always nice and stretchy and shiny...this one, not so much, but I'm going to check again tomorrow. If this doesn't work, I won't make another until I can properly read the PH. I hope it's successful this time too but my hopes aren't up too high!

[Rain Frances]

Oh Ann, I love that photo! I hope I have one to show you tomorrow!

[Rain Frances]

Well, attempt number 4 failed. Sigh, **wiping a tear**



What could have slightly been a stretch last night, turned into a ricotta today. Oh well, that's okay. I still won't give up, but I will wait for my PH meter before I waste any more milk! I wonder if there is anyone out there who has ALWAYS had a good recipe, a good result and Mozza-pride! If you are there, please let me know! Ha ha.

[AnnDee]

Rain, which recipe and what type of milk did you use?
Use as fresh as you can for mozzarella, definitely non homogenised milk. I used yoghurt or buttermilk as my culture before and it worked well as long as I use good milk (I use raw milk). The difference will be on the temp during the make, higher when I use yoghurt and lower when I use buttermilk.

[Rain Frances]

Hi Ann,

For the milk, I really have zero choice, I have to use grocery store milk. It's 3.25% pasteurized and homogenized. Unless you own a cow or know someone with a farm, you're stuck, like me! It's a local company so it's the freshest I can get. There is conflicting opinion/advice about using Calcium Chloride to help with the effects of pasteurization and homogenization. I've tried with and without, neither made much of a difference in the end.

My Cheddars and my Dry Jack all worked perfectly with the milk I have, and so did my Quick Mozzarella...but the traditional style has something against me lol!

The culture I use is Thermophilic direct set and the recipe I used the last time was from Gianaclis Caldwell's blog: Traditional Mozza Recipe but I've also used the New England Cheese Making Company's Cultured Mozza Recipe.

I do have buttermilk culture and I have some yogurt culture on the way. The yogurt culture is labeled "sweet yogurt culture".

If you have any advice, I'm listening!
Rain

[mobius]

Hey girl,

Out of curiosity what pH meter are you getting and when is it showing up? 

[Rain Frances]

Hi Mobius My order is still "preparing shipment" but I hope to get it by Friday!! The PH meter was similar to the one I found on the New England Cheese Making site: Waterproof PH Tester, but not that one, and the one I got was around $40 CAD.

I got some advice saying one with a probe would be much better because the curd would get all caught up in this type of PH meter, but the one with the probe is out of my price range in the hundreds of dollars. There was a review on the New England site, the person who reviewed  this "pocket" PH-style meter said it worked well for his cheese making, so I'll have to be the judge of that myself.

I have to pick myself up and realize I'M not the failure, it's the cheese, blame it on the cheese lol!

[mobius]

Bad cheese, Bad!!

Thanks re pH meter info, that is a more reasonable price than the ones I was looking at! Yay!

[Rain Frances]

Very bad cheese lol...I'll let you know how the "pocket" Ph meter works for me, if I do get it by Friday I will be attempting another Mozza this weekend.

[Bernardsmith]

For what it's worth - and I am really a very novice cheese maker - I think Mozzarella is perhaps the hardest cheese to make although popular books tout this as a simple cheese. I culture my cheeses with home made kefir and it can take more than 36 hours for the milk to become acidic enough but as others have suggested that window is very small and if I miss it then the pH drops too low and the cheese becomes grainy ( ). I think what I need is some kind of digital pH meter that will signal me when the pH hits about 5.3 (I am only half joking!) . Good luck!

[Rain Frances]

Hi Bernard!   Hey, I'm getting the PH meter because I NEED to SUCCEED...lol...well, I'll eat my hat if it doesn't work out this weekend. The meter is arriving tomorrow. Oh wouldn't that be nice if it had that kind of signal? Now that would be easy cheese making! My problem now is that I don't know which recipe to follow. I've tried 3 different ones now and none of them worked. Is it the recipe, my milk or the PH? PH definitely, but each recipe has a difference...it's hard to figure out which one to potentially waste another gallon of milk on.

[FooKayaks2]

Hi Rain,

Use the Caldwell recipe, it worked for me. I find gianaclis recipes almost always work.

Good luck.

Mathew

Ps make sure you rinse your pH meter after you measure within each time, and leave the probe tip wet.

[Rain Frances]

Thanks Matthew!!

I wanted to try her recipe again. And you know what, I just realized I have PH strips...I don't know how they'll work, sorry if this is too much information, but we bought them when our dog had recurring bladder issues...maybe I can use the meter to test the ripening PH after the culture (just liquid at that point) and the strips to wrap around the curd to see if it hits the magic 5.2 number? That might be a good substitute until I can afford a meter with a spear.

And thanks again for all of your advice. I read how you all clean your meters and I'm going to really be careful to make sure it's super sanitized each time, then well calibrated. I hope it works!!

[FooKayaks2]

Rain,

Just push a small piece of curd onto th end of the pH meter. It should work pretty well.

Mathew