Hi guys,
Love this forum! I've learned so much from it and from my own experiments here in the kitchen. I just made Mozz for the 2nd time in a week, first time was a success, beginners luck I guess!! This time the texture, creaminess and yield was even better than the first, because I didn't over stretch, but I'm having a problem with the flavor. I don't know how to describe it exactly-I wouldn't say it's 'off', but it has a very slight taste of something between a tangy slightly chemical aftertaste and 'goaty goat cheese' flavor, but I've used raw cow's milk that's fresh so I've no idea how it got this flavor. Could it have been the rennet? citric acid? HELP!....should I even eat it?
Here is my ingredient list and what I did:
1.5 gallons of raw cow's milk (delivered 3 days ago by milkman, stored in fridge, undisturbed)
1 1/4 tsp of citric acid dissolved in 1/4 cup of water
1/4 tsp of Marschall brand liquid rennet (enzyme in this rennet is called muchor meihei) dissolved in 1/4 cup of water
First I added citric acid diluted in 1/4 cup water while milk was starting to warm up ( 65F), mixed well for a couple of minutes. Heated milk slowly to 95F, that's when I added the diluted rennet in 1/4 cup water, stirring for about less than a minute. Turned off the heat right away and I could see that it began setting very quickly. Left undisturbed for 15 mins, curd was formed before the 15 mins timeframe but I decided to wait and follow the recipe I had to avoid issues. By then the curd had separated from the sides of the pot and tested curd with finger, the break was fine, whey flowed up greenish color, etc, all seemed well.
Began cutting curds and that's when I noticed that they were slightly harder to cut than my first batch of Mozz. It seems like the curd was tougher this time around so I wasn't able to cut the bottom part of the curds into nice neat squares like the first time. As I was cutting, the whole curd mass moved around too much and then big chunks of curd began matting together. I did my best to cut what I could, not too worried about shape anymore but I stopped because I didn't want to stir the curds too much, so pretty big curd chunks were left in there unfortunately.
Heated curds up to 105 for 5 mins to have curds release more whey, stirring very little. Curds sank to the bottom of pot as expected. Then I drained them and noticed they were a bit more rubbery than my first batch and most were all matted together. I had to break them up a lot in order to salt them, but I tasted them after I had added the salt, that's when I noticed that weird flavor. After salting curds and draining I stored them in the fridge for 4 hours, unsure if I should make this cheese or not, but I came back to make the mozz and the cheese texture, stretching everything turned out perfect, yet that flavor is still there. It's not super strong and some bites of cheese had more of that funky flavor than others.
I also made Ricotta from the leftover whey and got about 10 ounces of ricotta which also had that weird flavor, but it was not as strong as in the Mozz. I added extra salt to the Ricotta and that seemed to help w/the flavor, but I can still taste it.
What do you guys think it could be? I'm sorry if my post is long winded but I wanted to explained enough to give you an idea, so you can help me crack this 'mystery' flavor. I'm concerned if I should eat it or not, my son is dying to eat some but I'm scared to let him try it in case there's something wrong with it. It's been about 7 hours since I first tasted the curds and ricotta and so far I'm not sick. I doubt it's bacterial but I'm quite paranoid!
Any help is appreciated, thanks!
Natalie
