Hello everyone, my first post here after lurking for long time.
I have access to both raw Buffalo and cow milk. My very first try involve Buffalo milk and it was a failure - the curds just won't stretch, I left with a tasteless huge chunk of eraser. I quickly learned that I overdosed the rennet, and probably not acidic enough. I also cut the curds slightly smaller then 1". But I wasn't used to the Buffalo milk taste, and it's expensive, so I settle with cow milks.
I then had 2 failures with raw cow milk that by the time it's heated up to 32℃ the solids separated from the whey. I probably put too much citric acid as I'm using weighing scale than measuring spoon.
I decided to follow exactly what the recipe call for - using measuring spoon and voila - everything happen as the recipe indicated. I had two successful attempts from two different milk sources (both raw) and they works. Here are what I used:
Double strength rennet 1/8 tsp (diluted with RO water)
Citric acid 1.5 tsp (diluted with RO water)
Raw cow milk 4L
I first pour the acid mix into the pot before I start, and pour the cold milk over it. You'll probably realize some small curds forming on top, which I proceed with no harm. Heat it up to 32℃, if you don't feel the milk thickening or separating at this point, you're safe. Proceed with rennet, clean break occur at 10mins mark, actually it already formed a custard like consistency 3mins after rennet added. I don't use flocculation method, I just rotate the pot slightly and see how the milk "spring" back and forth, and tilt the pot a little to see how well it stick to the pot. If you see a panna cotta like consistency (maybe softer), you can pretty much be sure it'll be a clean break.
I then cut it larger than 1" (more like 1.5"), I don't know why I did that but it turned out great anyway. I did wait 5mins after the cut, and start to heat the pot up to 40℃ and start stirring the curds. You should already see some stringing on the curd upon heating to about 36℃, especially the lower portion into the pot as it's hotter over there upon heating, and you can be sure the curds going to stretch later on.
Curds collected, drained (felt like smooth jiggly sticky stuff, like fats on meat), and heated with microwave. First heat 45sec - 1min might not bring it to the temperature needed (I didn't measure) but you should already start to see the curds melting, use spatula to work on the curds by folding but also lifting up high if you can catch the curds. After a short while you should feel the curds cooling down and resisting (firming up), into the microwave for 30secs. My first batch seem to create silky smooth stretch at this point as the curd seem softer. Second batch has firmer curd thus it took the third heating (also 30sec) to form the same silky smooth stretch. Rolled into ball and put in ice water.
The mozz ball seem to have slimy skin after a day so I probably need to make better brine. But it'll work for baked stuff. Flavor wise I could probably use less rennet and let it sit to develop more (still probably not as much as using cultures) but I hope my notes will be useful to others.
PS: before I use raw milk I did use store bought milk (P/H) and curds always resulted in thick yogurt like strength which shattered pretty much right away. Raw milk curds however has more elasticity or "spring" to them thus they do not shatter easily. Think of squeezing thick yogurt vs jello.
