Hello Folks I Hope I Don't Bore Anyone With Details
Actually I did try Mozzarella once before but with MM100-101 .. not acid enough. Try thermophilic!
Thanks for the advice about leaving longer under hot water, I did try that but it dissolved into a kinda ricotta thing but amazing taste! The remaining 3/4 cake I just cut into 1/2 inch cubes put under salted whey at 85C for 30 sec without stretching then made a new cake, which everyone thought was Mozzarella. My chef buddy bought my first batch ( the one that did not stretch ) and he says it's great, it even squeaks when you chew it!
But I did not give up on the stretching!
I tried again, I went ALL OUT to increase acidity, but major failure! I still did not stretch!
Here is the recipes with changes as I indicate.
Get 8 liters aka 2 gal goat milk
Heat to 70C for 30 min to pasteurize
Cool to 33 C more or less
Added 1 cup Liquid Yogurt (like buttermilk in US) and mixed well
(new recipe added 1/4 tsp lipase for flavor but resulted in oil on top of whey aka loss of cream)
Lipase means enzyme that break down lipids which are fats so I assume the additional oil on the whey was
due to excess breakdown of cream, not really what I want.
Incubate for 1 hour
( new recipe waited 2 hours seems ok not yet solid )
Then after 1 hour added rennet 1/32 tsp
(new recipe waited 2 hours not yet solid)
(new recipe used 1/16 tsp rennet after 2 hours)
(new recipe added 3 tsp of citric acid dissolved in 1/2 cup of water)
waited 1 hour
Ladle off 60% of the whey with coffee cup and keep the whey, and rinse the curds with cool water.
( Ladle off most of the excess whey with coffee cup(and do not rinse the curds) and drain in cheese cloth lined collander.
First recipe ended up with nice curd nothing ordinary except very rubbery, after immersing in 85C salt water for 30 sec did not stretch more than a little, it did not stick back together, but made very nice Mozzarella! I think, maybe stretching is not important!
For the second batch the curd had sunk and very hard to cut, rubbery, and oil on top of the whey!
Let sit overnight draining in collander, Next day heat 3/4 gal whey to 85C with 1/2 - 1 C salt and try to stretch.
First batch almost can stretch, nice taste, I did sell it!
After I took the curd and cut into 1 inch squares and put under salt water 1/2- 1 cup of salt .. (salted whey).
The first batch it can stretch a bit but can't fold and stick back together
, but people love it and bought it, and if not told said, "Is this mozzarella?". I told them yes, and they kept eating it!
Second batch, all out acid as I can get it, worse, it did not stretch at all, tasted like acid, going to toss it.
Acid might be good but doesn't solve the no stretch problem. I went all out, increased the incubation with acid yogurt to 2 hours, added citric acid (advised 2tsp/gal in some recipe) ... ruined the taste and still no stretch.
Next time I will I adding less lipase (for flavor), and incubate 2 hours with yogurt only, add 1/32 rennet (no citric acid), and try under hot brine longer! If it doesn't work, who cares, it still tastes nice without stretching!
John