I cant imagine Im the first person to have this question, but I couldnt find anything about it.
I was making mozarella last night & after I cut the curds, I inserted a spoonful of curds into boiling hot water to get them to melt/fuse together as done at 1:30 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YIYjOFwLWw. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YIYjOFwLWw.)
However, no matter how long I kept the curds in the hot water for, they wouldnt fuse together - but just get more hot.
Then I tried microwaving them as I did in the past. Once again, although the curds got boiling hot, they stil wouldnt fuse well at all.
I was wondering what I did wrong?
I know one possiblitiy is that I cooked the curds upto 120F although the recipe said to stop at 105F (I did this because my thermometer was at the side of the pot which was much cool than the pots' center). Could this be the issue?
Thanks
Roman
I can't wait to hear the answer to this because I have the worst time making mozzarella with this exact same issue. It may be considered a "beginner's" cheese but I only have a 25% success rate.
Roman, the key to mozarella is having the right amount of acid in the curds -- pH 5.3 or so if I remember correctly. Too little acid, and it won't stretch; too much and it will crumble.
Getting the right acid level is accomplished either by adding acid (the 30-minute method, which has never worked well for me), or by letting a culture work until it reaches the target acid.
If you used mesophilic culture, you killed it at 120˚, and thus you wouldn't reach the target acid level. If you used thermophilic culture, it should have survived ... but you may not have allowed the right amount of time to develop the needed acid ... or maybe it got too dry ... or maybe someone who knows more than I do will chime in with the correct answer! :)
Doubt anyone would consider it a "beginners" cheese!
@AwakePhD,
I actually didnt use any cultures - the recipes I was following didnt call for any... Is that normal?
How could I know when I am at the correct acid level?
I know the obvious solution is getting a PH meter, but is there any less expensive solution?
There are pH strips that have a limited range. This is the one I have.
(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTYwMFgxMjAw/z/AR0AAOSwWKtUwRpZ/$_12.JPG?set_id=880000500F)
Roman, if you didn't use any culture, did you use some added acid, e.g., citric acid, lemon juice, or vinegar? If not, you are not going to get the level of acid you need ... or at least not unless you are using raw milk with cultures already in it.
To test the pH without a meter, you do exactly as you did -- you start testing the the curds in hot water to see if they are ready to stretch. If you added acid, you should be ready as soon as you have drained off the whey; if you are waiting for the cultures to acidify the curds, it may take several hours.
Quote from: steffb503 on March 23, 2015, 10:32:07 AM
Doubt anyone would consider it a "beginners" cheese!
Actually a fair number of books, websites, and tutorials introduce it early on, as an "easy to make" cheese requiring no cultures nor press.
Quote from: awakephd on March 23, 2015, 08:41:18 PM
Roman, if you didn't use any culture, did you use some added acid, e.g., citric acid, lemon juice, or vinegar? If not, you are not going to get the level of acid you need ... or at least not unless you are using raw milk with cultures already in it.
To test the pH without a meter, you do exactly as you did -- you start testing the the curds in hot water to see if they are ready to stretch. If you added acid, you should be ready as soon as you have drained off the whey; if you are waiting for the cultures to acidify the curds, it may take several hours.
Excellent info! The recipe I have (like Roman) doesn't call for any cultures; mine wants citric acid. I think I may up the citric acid amount a bit to make sure I'm acid enough.
Yes, mozzarella is presented as an easy cheese ... but reading on this forum has confirmed my own experience, that it is not nearly as easy as it is made out to be. It can be made without cultures--generally using citric acid--and it doesn't need a press, so theoretically it is easier to start with, as you don't have to procure more specialized ingredients and tools. (Though you still need rennet, so ...)
Some folks seem to have the knack of getting the citric-acid version to work right ... but a lot of us have tried it repeatedly and had very mixed results. Maybe it is a function of the milk available; maybe we're just doing something wrong. But the bottom line is that this is not a fool-proof cheese. My own experience is that even when I have gotten it to work, sort of, the "curds" are much more like ricotta than like curds -- the acid causes the milk to separate into a million tiny flecks even before the rennet can do anything. Once, and only once, I was able to drain the result into something like a curd mass, which sort of agreed to stretch ...
Keep in mind that you are aiming for a fairly specific pH range -- 5.2 to 5.4, IIRC. If the pH is too high, the curds won't stretch; if the pH is too low (too much acid), the curds will break up and crumble. So if you have trouble, the problem may not be too little citric acid; it may be too much!