My first (attempted) Mozz- NEED HELP

[MrsKK]

Hang in there, Ethan.  You can do it!

[DeejayDebi]

I never had a batch anyone made yet I couldn't bring back by nuking it and kneading it a million times. One of my girlfriends had a batch shatter this week that was going to be a cheddar and we turned the grainy mush into orange mozzarella by nuking it. Strange looking stuff but the kid loved it.

I think I will have to change my name to Dr Cheese. I am always running out to make house calls on cheese makes gone bad! This is almost as bad as when I used to build computers and sell them. 

[iwantthegold]

Karen and Debi:

I DID IT!

well I think my pH was never right.. first because I didn't let the cultures long enough and second because I couldn't find citric acid and used ascorbic... luckily I managed to make it today!!  It may be a bit bland and I didn't salt it because I did that too early last time and just turned the whole curd into a sloppy pile O'mush no matter how much we heated it.  I definitely think the milk I was using was off so I should have most things down for this to repeat.

I am going to give the recipe from fiasco farms (http://fiascofarm.com/dairy/mozzarella.htm) minus the raw milk part for now a try tomorrow.  Anyone had any experience with this one in particular?

one down.. a million to go

Ethan

[DeejayDebi]

Good job Ethan!

Ascorbic acid is not the same thing as citric acid. That has come up a few times here and it never gets mentioned as one of the ingredients used before the failure until after many heart breaks. Maybe John can't post a flashing sign somewhere?

Ascorbic acid is not the same thing as citric acid! Don't use it for mozzarella!
maybe this will work?

[MrsKK]

It's interesting that the FiasCo recipe uses both culture and citric acid.  I wonder why?

You may also want to check out Fankhauser's recipes:  http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Cheese/Cheese.html  My method is most like his Italian Mozzarella recipe and I really like it.  However, I do use raw milk, so my results can be quite different from past/homogenized milk.

I would say that the ascorbic acid was the issue all along.  For more flavor and to salt your mozz, try using a gallon of whey (or however much you have) to heat the curd up.  I add a cup of kosher salt to a gallon of whey and it salts the curd just right.  If you use canning salt or cheese salt, though, the amounts would probably be quite different.

Let us know how the next batch goes for you.

[iwantthegold]

Well I adjusted the recipe ever so slightly, added a little longer cook time (extra 30 min) for the curds and a slightly higher temp (93-94 instead of 90-91) and they never really expelled the whey like i saw before... I hung it as in the fiasco farms recipe and... well its a big glob of nothing sort of reminiscent to a dense ricotta...

I should note that i changed the recipe because it called for raw milk and mine was most definitely not... back to the drawing board i suppose

Debi: I think that sign is perfect

Karen: I found when I added a cup of kosher salt for one of my failed mozz attempts I found a white residue on top and on the cheese... I know it is just undissolved salt but do you boil your solution and then cool? The reason I ask is I believe that ratio approaches the saturation point of the solution and that's usually necessary for production in chemistry.

The extra culturing definitely gave the fresh curd a better flavor, without the cultures (and salt remember) the cheese was exceptionally bland but the cultured+ citric acid recipe had a nice full body. 

All I know is my 30 minute mozz turned out well and melted well on my first pizza that night and even better after sitting in my fridge the following night... and the fresh parm I added made up for the lack of salt (I do love my parm haha)  but I guess this just proves I need to get some raw milk....luckily I'm in the ag program at my school

[MrsKK]

No, I don't boil the whey, but I do heat it to about 160 degrees for heating and stretching the cheese, so it is plenty hot enough to dissolve all of the salt.

Sorry, I don't have any answers for your latest attempt!  I do have to give you credit for continuing, though.

[DeejayDebi]

Raw milk is great but you can make cheese with store bought as long as it is not UHT or ESL quite nicely by adding Calcium cloride.