What could it be? Small "rips" or "tears" in Mozz when pulling long.

[mhill]

Having lived in southern Italy in the early 1980's, I recently started a quest to reproduce the Mozz that I remember from 20 years ago  . So far the results have been very good as my technique has improved. Spin, cheese texture, flavor all work well. The only thing I am running into that I could use some advice on is when I do long pulls of the melted curd to make braids, etc. I get some small "rips" or "tears" up and down the strand. Acidity is right, I do a pre-test of curd before "spinning" the whole batch. My water temperature and curd temperature for the spin is at or above what they should be. The pull works very well, I just lose the smoothness somewhat for the long pulls. Any advice would be very much appreciated!! Thanks, Mike.

[linuxboy]

what culture are you using?

[mhill]

Good question. Just asking it makes me think that in going through my mental check list of what could be happening, I didn't even think about culture! I use the wacheese.com recipe of 1/4 cup yogurt and 1/2 cup cultured buttermilk per gallon milk. The yogurt is re-cultured (multiple times) from a supermarket off the shelf "Yogourmet" culture that contains L. Bulgaricus, S. Thermophilus, and L. Acidolphilus. I always make sure it is a strong/young culture. Until the last batch, the buttermilk culture was from butter made from naturally clabbered cream (no added culture). Last batch I used NE Cheesemaking Meso culture (says contains  S. Lactis, S. Cremoris) because I could get it quickly at a local brew supply while I am waiting on some Abiasa culture from Glengarry (I guess I am moving up in the cheese culture world  ). I wanted to go with commercial culture because once in a while we would get "off flavors" from the natural clabber (though I wouldn't use it for the Mozz). All milk is from a couple Jersey/Brown Swiss crosses we have and it is used raw. 

I read in the intro to the wacheese.com recipe about the ratio of rod and sphere shaped bacteria and that it was important, but I wasn't sure how the ratios translate into different outcomes of product characteristics/ quality?

Thanks, Mike.