i guess this batch was a fail. i had/have nice curds, but they're just not stretching. i've tried melting in hot water and the microwave, and it either disintegrates in the water, or just melts into a mess that just never comes together in the microwave.
i'm concerned with the fact that they'll be 48 hours old at 2pm today, and not refridgerated.
made it using store-bought milk (only option), yogurt, animal rennet (followed MrsKK's 2-day directions)
the curds are firm, they just turn to mush. should i keep waiting, or is it pretty much hopeless? if hopeless for mozz, is there anything else i can do with them?
at what point do you run into harmful bacteria taking over and making it dangerous to use in any fashion?
Curd disintegration is usually a sign of over processed milk Try another brand. If that is not an option, you can also try doubling your calcium chloride.
thanks for your reply! :)
yes. forgot to add i used calcium chloride :) before using it, my curd was a loose mess at the top. however, it would melt on a couple of my attempts, and i did get it to stretch and make decent (albeit essentially flavorless) mozz. the other attempts i ended up turning it into a cheese spread :P
i did get good curd and a strong clean break using the calcium chloride, a first for me. however, the whole pot set up. after an hour, it was one solid curd from top to bottom. all the cut curds remained intact through transfer to the colander, and the whey did drain off. i've got firm curds now, they're just getting old.
should i still double my calcium chloride? i don't mean to keep asking you the same question, i just don't want to waste another couple gallons of milk (5 bucks here and 5 bucks there, soon turns to 50 bucks, then 100 bucks). the wife is getting tired of my experiments already :P
2 gallons of milk, and i used 2-1/2 tsp calcium chloride using a granule calcium chloride (35g water to 15g calcium chloride)
No, if you're getting a good curd set, don't increase the CaCl2. Look for milk that has not been homogenized. "Organic" milk is usually the worst, because it is almost always ultrapasteurized.
So, you are doing a 2 day traditional cultured Mozz. You are using yogurt as your starter culture. That's fine, but I would look at that first. Is the yogurt store bought or homemade? If it is store bought, be sure that is is "active" and contains live bacteria. Not all yogurt does. Second, how much are you adding? The fact that you are not getting any stretch indicates that you might not be getting good acidification and need to add more yogurt in the beginning. Mozz is extremely sensitive to pH. It would be a lot easier to diagnose your problems if you had a pH meter and could test the acidity.
i used oikos, i didn't measure, but it was a small container of it (personal serving), so probably 1/2 a cup or so. it supposed to have cultures in it, but i can't say for sure it has live cultures. dang it....
the pH meter.... i'll have to look to see if i can find the type to use and if it's available locally.
how long would the average curd stay safe to use or do stuff with? would you still try to do anything with them after 48 hours?
MrsKK also recommends that the milk not be over 3 days old, in one of her posts too. I don't know that that is possible with store bought milk. Her recipe is for the most part formulated around fresh raw milk.
I answered you on the other thread before seeing you had updated here. Sorry you did not get good results.
You said on the other thread that you didn't rinse the curds...most recipes do not rinse the curds and they are stretching in about 6 hours. I'm wondering if the curd was already overacidified by the time you tried to stretch it.
I use 1/3 cup of yogurt per gallon of milk, so 1/2 cup to 2 gallons would be a bit low.
At this point, I would smell the curd. If it smells like cheese, I would taste a tiny bit of the cheese to see if it tasted okay. If not, spit it out and rinse your mouth well. If it tastes okay, break the curd up and salt it to taste. You can use it on salads or on pizza/lasagna, etc. It won't melt, but it is still useable, as long as it didn't get contaminated (which you would taste).
One of the most (if not the most important) milestone of making cheese is the PH of the cheese curd (not the whey) when you drain the whey.
To determine an accurate PH you will need a good PH meter that can give you a reading to 0.01+/- (PH paper is not accurate or reliable enough). Of course you can always stumble on how to make stretchy mozz however will you be able to reproduce it? There are so many factors and variables that deal with how much time it takes to reach a target PH, that your results will be mixed and frustrating. The variables being the type/amount of culture, the starting PH of your milk, and the temperature of the milk. It's much simpler and easier to know the PH.
For mozz (according to Peter DIXON's recipe) the ph at draining should be 6. The reason the ph at drainage is so crucial is because there is a direct relationship between the PH and the mount of calcium that the caseins will hold. The higher the ph (less acidic) the higher the amount of Calcium the caseins have, the lower the ph (more acidic) the lesser the mount of Calcium. Why is it so important the amount of calcium? Calcium will determine the characteristics (i.e. how elastic and meltable) of the cheese. Once your ph at drainage drops below 6, the caseins will not have enough calcium to stay together and will disappear in a watery mess. If you have too much calcium on the other hand, the curd will be too rubbery and will resist stretching (too squeaky like haloumi, because hloumi is drained at a high ph due to no acidification).
The second important factor after draining is the final ph of the cheese. For mozz it should be between 5.1 and 5.3. Less then 5.1 and you risk again the cheese melting into a gooey mess. Higher than 5.3 and the cheese will not melt enough. There are also off course other factors such as the moisture and fat content of the cheese which determine its meltablety.
I hope the above helped and wasn't too confusing.
As for the kind of milk you use. Of course fresh is always better. If you're lucky enough to get raw milk, or milk that has not been ultra pasteurized and homogenized then you have no issues. However the difference between non-homogenized and homogenized milk is very large. The non-homogenized does not shatter (however it cost twice as much than the regular brand milk where I live). I tried the typical homogenized and pasteurized store milk with frustrating results. However with many trials and errors I was able to reach good results to prevent (or greatly minimize) shattering. The trick was after cutting the whey was to leave the curd rest for about 20 minutes to heal and harden a bit more and to minimize stirring after that. Of course I had to use temperature control and size of cut curds to control the moisture content, since stirring also helped drain the whey from the curds, I was left with those two options to control the moisture content.