Brand new to cheesemaking and this forum. I brew beer and make wine so I know the power of a good forum.
My wife bought me some cheesemaking books for Christmas. It was a great gift! I have ordered some supplies and they should be here at the end of the week. Meanwhile, the wife also found me some Junket rennet at the local store so I thought I'd try a practice batch of mozzarella. The Junket directions call for citric acid but I have an acid blend for winemaking, its a blend of citric, malic and tartaric acids. I'm giving the recipe a go tonight.
My question is, will this acid blend work OK? I also have pure tartaric acid but no pure citric.
Yes, the flavor will be slightly different with an acid mix, and you need to adjust quantity to take into account the different disassociation constants, but it will work. Use a pH meter or strips for best results, because it's hard to determine the acid blend mix.
Hang on to that tartic acid for mascarpone!
I knew I'd read of tartaric being used in Carroll's book so I was hoping the blend would suffice until I can get some pure citric. What pH am I shooting for anyway?
My pH is around 4.8.
The wife is already planning some cannoli's with fresh mascarpone.
pH should be 5.0 - 5.2 to stetcch properly but you could bgin to get a stretch at pH 5.2-5.3 if the water is 160F degrees.
Most people here don't like to use Junket but I used it for everything from mozzarella to parmesan for years.
I got great curds, delicate yet firm. I drained them in cheesecloth, then transferred it all to a bowl. I heated for 45sec on high, stirred, heated some more, stirred some more. It never seemed to be melting but it did become soup. :o
Somehow I think I did something wrong. I maybe should've started kneading by hand back when it was curdy/grainy looking, but for the life of me it didn't look like it was melting yet.
I made some ricotta out of the whey. I'm refrigerating the melted curd, hoping to salvage something from it.
Any ideas of what happened? Maybe my pH wasn't quite as low as I thought, I used pH paper out of laziness. It sure looked like it was rght around 5 though.
I think your pH was too low. I'm not a big fan of direct acidified mozz. Have you tried to make the cultured one? IMHO, it has much better flavor. Mozz will actually stretch lightly starting around 5.4, so I don't think it was an issue with the pH being too high.
I didn't know there was such a narrow window for pH, interesting. I got milk from a local store, do you suppose it might be ultra-pasteurized? Carroll's book mentions something about milk thats heated at too high a temp not working right. I definitely want to find a source of dependable milk that I can use for this stuff. This milk curdled just wonderfully and the curds shrank up a bit as I warmed it to 110F, I had high hopes that things were going to work out right.
I'm just playing with this stuff until my cultures and good rennet arrives, hopefully late this week. I put the "cheese soup" in the fridge overnight and it set up some, tastes like cottage cheese. I'm already eating a farmers cheese type of log I made the day before, I was hoping to have some mozzarella to put on a chicken stewed in tomatoes that is tonight's supper.
Also, I'm using a noniodized sea salt as my cheese salt, is there any problem with this?
I'm all questions at this point, I'll do some searches in the coming days and try not to be too much of a pest. Thanks for the insights.
pH is HUGE in cheesemaking. pH variances of even .1 can make a large difference (I've posted before here about why this is). For example, drain your whey at 6.2, you get a smooth, cuttable cheese, drain it at 5.8, and your cheese will not hold together very well and be more crumbly.
Mozz is no exception and is especially picky. Your milk set, so it doesn't seem like it was UP. Seems like there was too much acid and the curds fell apart when you heated them. Every time that's happened to me with mozz in the past was when I either went to sleep and the curds overacidified with cultured mozz, or I added too much acid.
Milk has an isoelectric point of pH ~4.6, and the closer you get to it, the worse the stretch is. Technically, a cheese will start to be meltable at a pH of 5.8 and stretchable a little below that.
Salt without iodine is best.
So ultra-pasteurized milk won't set up? Because I think I had some really nice curds. So I can rule that out, which is good since I want to be able to use that milk again. I was actually very proud of the way the curds looked right up until I destroyed them in the microwave.
I suppose its an acid-related problem then. Or I didn't cook the curds quite long enough or drain them quite as thoroughly as I should've. I also never reached in with my hands to knead the curds, just used a rubber spatula. It never seemed like they were wanting to stick together though. Maybe I'll sneak up on the pH next time with my acid blend instead of adding it all up front. I added a bit more than the 1.25tsp the recipe called for (just short of 1.5tsp), and there's no telling whether this blend produces more or less acid. Apparently its a little more acidic than straight citric.
I see in another mozz thread that a pH below 5.0 results in cheese that doesn't hang together, this seems to be the likely explanation. I like that, I can back off on the acid addition and hope for a better result.
Does the rennet produce additional acid? Or can I simply add enough of my acid blend to get in the right range and then go from there?
Quote from: Lennie
So ultra-pasteurized milk won't set up?
It may form a very weak set. The heat destroys the milk too much to be useful for cheese.
Quote from: Lennie
Does the rennet produce additional acid? Or can I simply add enough of my acid blend to get in the right range and then go from there?
No, rennet does not acidify. Please see the video I posted here:https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2357.0.html to see what rennet does to milk.
You can acidify directly with acid to get to the right pH, or use some buttermilk or yogurt (or DVI) instead and make a cultured mozz.
I actually watched that earlier today, very informative. I just didn't know if the action of the protease caused any additional acidification.
I'm trying again tonight with another gallon of whole milk (only 2.53 plus tax at Aldis). I'm using just under 1.25 tsp of acid blend (as opposed to 1.5tsp last night) and I have a pH in the low 5's according to my wide-range pH paper. I also used a 1/2 tablet of Junket rennet this time, again following directions. Its hard to follow directions! More should be better!
omorrow I should get my cheesemaking supplies I ordered, then I can do some serious cheesemaking. Although after reading Fankhauser's webstie I wonder if I spent too much to do something I could achieve with ingredients available locally (Junket, buttermilk, yoghurt).
Lennie -
I used all of those for many years and they will make really good cheeses. It is easier however to make many more of the authentic old world styled cheeses with commercial cultures. So the question becomes what are you trying to achieve?
I'm just playing and practicing until I get my cultures, molds and good rennet. At least I've seen a good curd now, and have a new appreciation for sticking closely to a protocol. I worked up a double boiler system after scorching some milk on my first attempt, now I'm figuring out how to keep from overshooting target temps.
I need another thermometer to put in the water jacket of the double boiler.
For mesophilic cheeses you can just use hot tap water to heat with.
I used hot water the first time, then I saved those 3gal to use again. I have a 5gal aluminum pot for a water pot and a 3gal enameled pot for my milk. Its handles sit nicely on the edges of the larger water pot.
Update on last night's batch. Another possible failure. With less acid and less rennet (folloewed the instructions this time) the milk didn't set up nearly as fast or as well as the night before. I may have stirred the rennet in too much, I don't know. The pH looked better. Anyway, I was tired so I went ahead and cut the curds and heated them, leaving them in the 108F water for a couple of hours while I went to bed. I woke up at midnight at got up to drain the whey and hung the curds in cheesecloth. This morning I put them in a bowl and added salt. This time the product was very sticky. I tried microwaving a portion and it still didn't seem to want to melt and be smooth. It was time to go to work at that point so thats where things stand.
I'll get this eventually, although it may wait for some easier cheeses to be made. My first shipment of cheesemaking stuff is out for delivery so I'm excited.
I got my citric acid in today, and the wife brought home a pH meter (I ordered the Hanna and it'll hopefully be here by the end of the week). Using commercial milk again, it took a little more than 1 1/2tsp of citric to get the milk to 5.3. I used a whole tablet of junket rennet, I want to save my good stuff for better cheeses. Its setting up now, will report back. I'm finishing off a bottle of Italian wine (Dolcetto) that I made from a kit, so results may be affected by this variable.
I've contacted someone who milks goats and have the FFA leader checking into dairy farmers who might sell raw milk.
I had high hopes but apparently a tablet of Junket rennet isn't very strong because the milk didn't set up for squat! I let the gallon of storebought milk go about 2 hours then cut and heated anyway, it is mushy and not setting up well even with some additional heating. I'm bummed but its my fault, I was saving my good supply of rennet and I shouldn't have been so cheap.
Is this the same milk as before? If so, I think it's your milk that's an issue. Junket should work fine. I started out making cheese with junket, and so long as the milk was good, I had no issues.
Yes I agree with Linuxboy. Unless it was very old Junket (it does expire) I have used it for years without problems.
I have found certain brands of milk that have no apparent markings for UHT or ESL that just won't make cheese no matter what. Fortunately I discovered them while trying to make yogurt so it didn't hurt to bad.
I believe Sailor brought out one day that these milks don't have to be labeled but most will have an expiration date longer than a week.
These curds werew mushy but I went ahead and cooked them and drained. It is certainly different than previous attempts. I'm going to go ahead and try heating/stretching them tonight. If not, its another batch of white cheese rolled with plastic wrap. I'm enjoying that product almost daily with herbs and cracked pepper.
This was Aldi's milk, I've tried others and had mixed results as well. I have one more gallon of Aldi's milk, I may give it a go with good rennet in the next few days. My junket is fairly new and not expired so it may well be this milk.
well at least you have produced a produce you emjoy eattig - that is a good thing!
Even better- we hava mozzarella! The pH meter worked its magic after all!
I took a scoop of the custard-like curds and microwaved them tonight, a lot of whey came out but I kept pouring this off and blending with a plastic spatula. When I got the stuff to 140F I saw it melt together, and I was able to fold and knead it before making it into a ball and dropping into the ice-cold salt water.
The second half of the batch isn't going the same way. The whey didn't separate out of it the way the first lump did, I suppose a lot of whey must've drained into the bottom of the curd during its storage in the fridge. Anyway I'm microwaving it to dry it out and its starting to look like it should as well.
I know now to use good rennet, or make the junket cheese when I have time to let it sit for a few hours.
Couldn't stand it, in the interest of science I tried that first ball. Pretty tasty stuff, has the squeakiness on your teeth like a fresh cheddar curd. Not sure that is right. I tried melting a slice and it did melt although not quite as nicely as I think it should. I think I am right on the edge of making a decent mozzarella.
The second ball is still being microwaved, and is just getting dry enough to work. I don't know that it'll come out right, but I'm encouraged enough to keep at it.
I finally microwaved the second ball into submission. It took many heatings but it finally dried up and became smooth and shiny as I kneaded it. Both of the balls are kind of low grade as far as I'm concerned, but they're tasty (ball #1 is long gone) and they are close enough that I'm thinking I just about have the hang of it. I get a better curd formed and I'm there.
This was fun! Now to research my next cheese.
Sometimes it's a PITA but it will eventually submit! Good job! Most people give up to quickly.