Mozzarella, yahoo!

[BigCheese]

Now that I have understood how cheese works from this forum I decided to revisit mozz, which I had mixed success with last year using the citric acid approach.

I did 5 gallons and kind of winged the whole thing, referencing various recipes, including Linuxboy's from the WCG site.

For culture I used some fairly old buttermilk (from actual butter, the cream had been cultured with Aroma B) and some meso 2 and thermo B, as I am trying to use them up. I refrigerated the curds overnight and when I got to them today (about 16-17 hours) they were around PH5.2 ( I was too lazy to calibrate).

Anyway, here they are (some of them):

[linuxboy]

Looks great! I know mozz should be white, but I love that lovely yellow tinge from good cow's milk

[BigCheese]

one thing that could have been better is, out of laziness, I just used my hard cheese brine. I am assuming this is not proper because in 20 minutes the cheeses became quite salty. maybe they were just too small for that amount of time?

[linuxboy]

Are they salty evenly throughout? When you toss in a brine like that it takes several hours for the salt to become distributed. I often will add salt to the hot whey and stretch the mozz in the salty whey, and then put into a pickle instead of brine. Helps me hit that 2% salt target faster for more immediate consumption.

[BigCheese]

Well I put them all in water and now they are nice. I used to salt the melting water or whey but the recipes I saw recently did not say to, and I was not sure if there was an advantage to the brine. Now I know, thanks.

[linuxboy]

Never made a difference for me. I think it winds up being about a 6-10% concentration in the hot wash, and I pull and form quickly so what happens is that the individual curd pieces soak up the salt, and then come together and are just perfect for fresh eating.

[mtncheesemaker]

Wow! Those look great. I am working up the nerve to give Mozzarella another go. I just need to jump in and do it.

[Boofer]

Very impressive. I want to try again. Nice pics.

-Boofer-

[BigCheese]

after a day I am very pleased with these. The previous mozz I made would get mushy on the outside if left in water, but this stuff is the real deal. I used it and the ricotta I made from the whey to make stuffed shells today

[MrsKK]

Lovely looking cheese - great job!

[DeejayDebi]

Very pretty mozzarella. Well done!

[Minamyna]

how did you get the braid into it?

[BigCheese]

just by stretching like a rope and then quickly looping it, pinching the loose ends together on the underside. I found it easier than getting a ball to seal on the bottom.

[MarkShelton]

When I have made mozz, I always had a problem sealing the bottoms too! I always wondered if it was just me!

[judec]

Wow really impressive pictures,  Mine always looks like squashed plops.