Lennie's "Intelligent" Mozzarella

[Lennie]

After working way too hard to make a simple ball of mozzarella (4 times a charm), I now have the necessary ingredients and accoutrement.  Namely, I have citric acid, good rennet tablets and a properly calibrated Hanna pH meter (hey don't laugh at my little crappy pH meter!  It can hear you!).

Tonight I'm making some curd for a microwave mozz that I'll serve tomorrow when my mom comes over.

I am using nearly 2gal of storebought whole milk, a little calcium and some lipase, and a full rennet tab so I don't have to wait all night.  I added ctiric acid in solution until I got a pH of 5.50.

More to come.

[justsocat]

Good pH point for "quick" mozzarella,  Lennie. Good luck! :)

[Lennie]

Yes, and the full tab of rennet started working very quickly, I'd say I'll have a good firm curd within 30min.  I probably could've gone with 1/2 tab, if I could get one to break in half of course.

What time is it where you are Pavel?  8PM CST here.  Wine is flowing.

[justsocat]

7-08 AM. Early morning :)

[Lennie]

Hope your day goes better than mine.  All bad news at work.

[Lennie]

The cheese has nearly a clean break after 13 minutes, clearly a bit too much rennet but it will be OK.  Waiting 30 minutes anyway. 

[justsocat]

What was the temperature of your milk when you add acid? Have you small curd particles above the solid  mass? I always have.

[Lennie]

Not so much really.  This milk set up quickly and completely on top.  I had a few small curds from the acid treatment but I stirred those in as much as possible.

Visit my goat milk thread tomorrow and tell me what I did wrong.  i know I will do something wrong!

[Lennie]

My curd turned out fairly moist, somewhat delicate and kind of sticky but I think this bodes well for its melting.  I'm waiting for that until tomorrow, I'm draining the curds in cheesecloth now and will refrigerate until tomorrow when I have guests and can serve freshly heated/stretched balls of mozzarella.

[Lennie]

Curds looked pretty good after a good long drain.  I might have let them get slightly matted.  Is that when you don't stir enough and a large mass kind of fuses together, impeding draining?  A bit of this seems to have been like that.  I was probably overly concerned about not shattering the curds.

Anyway, I'll find out about the melting properties later and maybe post a pic.

[Lennie]

I salted the curd a bit this morning, and drained the bit of whey that had come out.

Here are a couple photos of the process.

[justsocat]

When i make mozz and don't get matted together mass of curds after draining i know that something's wrong. Usually i have one solid bulk of curds even if it was 10 gal of milk butch. And i never try to cut it. I just add hot water and start to work it.

[Lennie]

Ah, well maybe this isn't so bad then.  I microwaved a couple minutes this morning and it worked great!  Came smooth and shiny without having to fight it.  As you can see I cheat and work it with the spatula.

[justsocat]

Congratulations, Lennie! Seems like you've done it finally? :D

[Tea]

Congrats that looks good.  Hope your Mum likes it.