Mozzarella, Goat's Milk - Stretch Problem

[goodgoat]

I have tried Mozzarella twice now with goat milk, first time the curd did not stretch and did not seem very rubbery, so this time I used a liquid yogurt culture instead of MM100-101 and much better result, the dried curd is very rubbery but again after 18 hours it did not stretch.

I used 2 gal of milk, 1 cup of yogurt (next time I might try adding some lipase too), incubated 1 hour added 1/32 tsp dry calf rennet, waited another hour and cut into 1/2 inch squares. I then waited 15 min, decanted whey with coffee cup and saved it. Added about 1/2 gal of cool water stirred then used slotted spoon to ladle off the curds and drained in a collander overnight at 27C (in airtight fly tight 5 gal bucket). I ended up with a nice cake of rubbery curd.

The next day 18 hrs later, I heated my 3/4 gal whey (boiled by accident) then removed ricotta since there was allot of curd floating, then I added 1 cup of salt and got the temp to 80C ish and immersed 3/4 inch cubes of above curd for 30 sec in the whey salt mix. Individual curds did stretch a little bit but refused to stick back together. After several attempts at heating and cooling stretching attempts I added 3 tsp of citric acid in the whey mix and still no stick and not much stretch. The taste was great, a little rubbery like Mozzarella but not quite there. So I finally gave up when it got too mushy and threw it in the whey and reheated to get more ricotta? out of it.

I still have 3/4 of the above rubbery curd. The curd could almost be Mozzarella if it had salt, it's really rubbery, much more so than Queso Blanco/Paneer. ? Should I let the curd sit longer to acidify more? Should I throw out the whey mix now and try salt water instead after waiting another day or reuse the whey salt citric acid mix?

Any suggestions, is this a goat milk thing?

John

[tnsven]

Hi John,

Sorry you're having trouble with your mozzarella! You mention putting the cubed curds in the hot whey for 30 seconds. That is generally not long enough in my experience. You should be able to leave it in the hot whey a little longer. I use a couple of bamboo spoons (wood works fine too) to gently squash the curds together under the whey. It may take 2 or 3 minutes for them to really mat and get a bit stretchy. Then I pull them out and start stretching. They should remain fairly easy to handle and may need to be put back in the hot whey.

Now, if you leave your curds in the hot whey for more than 30 seconds and they get really watery-stretchy, then you are likely too acidic.

Can you post the recipe that you used? I'm not familiar with the cool water rinse and leaving the curds at room temp for 18 hours seems like a long time.

I do not think it is a goat milk thing. But let us know your source and variety of milk (raw, UHT, etc.) as that can contribute to problems.

If at first you don't succeed.......

Kristin

[motochef]

I'm a newbie to this awesome art so what I'm posting is information that I was given about Mozzarella curds. I was told that after you cut the curds and removed most of the whey that you have to wait 4-5 hours for the ph level to get to 5.3 to 5.0. If you get under 5.0 you can't pull the curds its to late so you have a moving target that you have to hit. If you get to the 5.3 you can toss ice on them and slow down the ph and freeze. We ran short on time that day in the class so he froze them and we pulled them the next day. Hope the info helps!

[goodgoat]

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

[tnsven]

Real quick here John (I need to go milk!  )

I have had some trouble with the powdered rennet setting consistently. Be sure you are following the instructions for doing so to a T. And use cool water that is not chlorinated and don't mix it up more than 10 minutes before you need it. That may help with set. It does for me anyway.  And 1/32 t is too little rennet for 2 gallons. You should be using 1/16 t dissolved in 1/4 cup water.

I doubt the lipase contributed to the oil on top. In fact, I can't imagine what "oil on top" could be! I've had milky cream come out when stretching sometimes. Usually when the curds are a bit too acidic.

I'm not sure why you are adding the citric acid after incubation. Normally, citric acid is added to cold milk, the milk is warmed to incubation temp (around 90 F) then culture & lipase are added.

If you are not getting a stretch and the curd is hard & rubbery, then you are not developing enough acid for stretching. If the curds turn into a ricotta like mass, then you are too acid.

I'm still not sure why you are rinsing the curds. That may be stopping or slowing your acidification.

When I started making mozzarella, I used this recipe:

http://fiascofarm.com/dairy/mozzarella.htm

It uses both citric acid & culture to develop the acidity. I eventually eliminated the citric acid as I found it damaged the texture of the cheese & made it too acidic. I also found that heating the curds after cutting to 95-100 degree (instead of holding them at 90 as the recipe states) gave me a much better stretch.

I'm sure someone else will pipe up here soon. But it sounds like you are well on your way if you can sell the stuff!

Kristin