2nd try at a pulled cheese. Make went well as far as I can tell. I think I need a thicker pair of gloves! Hot Hot Hot... oww! Hey, I reached the big 50! I am 50 cheeses old now!
ALERT: I have run across a lot of errors on the recipes floating around. I used recipes from Artisan Cheese Making at Home. She tends to double the amount of rennet and culture needed in many of her recipes. There were big discrepancies in other books as well. SO WATCH OUT.
Mozzarella #50 1/28/12
Floc x 3
Yeild: 1 lb 2 oz
1 gallons raw Brown Swiss cow milk pH 6.7
1/16 tsp MA11
1/16 tsp TA61
1/16 tsp Chymosin (x3)
Warm milk to 95 degrees (I warmed to 94 degrees), add cultures and let rehydrate 5 minutes, and then ripen for 45 minutes maintaining temp of 90 – 95 degrees. Temp 94, forgot to take pH reading
Added lipase and stirred, then added rennet and waited for floc. Floc occurred in 9 minutes --9 x 3 = 27 minutes. Checked for clean break in 27 minutes and then cut curd into ½ cubes ( took 6 minutes to cut). Let rest 30 minutes at 90 degrees. temp was 90 degrees, forgot to measure pH.
Raise temp to 105 over 30 minutes. Stir 10 minutes at 105 degrees and let rest 15 minutes and drain. pH 6.3, temp 104 degrees
Drain curds for 15 minutes, then put curds back into pot and keep warm, curds should be kept at 102 - 105 degrees. Turn the curd mass twice during this time, it may take up to 2 hours to reach the target pH.
Check pH every 30 minutes until it’s 5.6 then check every 15 minutes until it’s between 5.2 – 4.9
30 min – 5.9 pH
60 min – 5.6 pH
75 min – 5.4 pH
90 min –5.3 pH
105 min-5.3 pH
120 min-5.3 pH
135 min- 5.2 pH
Pour whey off curd mass. and let drain a few minutes.
Cut into 1 inch cubes and submerge into 170 to 180 degree water.
Worked cubes into a ball and stretched one foot, looped back and stretched again 3 times. Made 4 balls by stretching the top and folding it under.
Submerged in ice water for 10 minutes, then brined for 20 minutes.
Pat dry, vacuum pack and store in refrigerator for a week or keep in container with whey covering it—may last longer that way—two weeks?
I just tried my cheese and it melts and stretchs great!
It's tougher than it should be, so I looked around and found luxinboys recommendations and will make the following changes next make:
Lower cook temp of 102 degrees
Lower pH 5.1-5.0, 5.0 preferred
cut curd into 2 cubes first and let rest 15 minutes, then cut into 1/2 cubes and let rest 30 minutes
My milk is 4%, so that's fine, and I'm careful not to overwork the curd... despite the temptation... it's fun...
That should do the trick... fingers crossed.
