The Dairy Chronicles: Homemade Mozzarella Cheese

Manang's Homemade Mozzarella Cheese

I have this book by Ashley English, Homemade Living: Home Dairy with Ashley English: All You Need to Know to Make Cheese, Yogurt, Butter & More , which I have had since last year when my family started using raw milk from cows raised by my BIL/SIL. It took a while for me to look at the recipes and decide that I could at least do some of them, mostly the soft cheeses and fermented milk (like yogurt, kefir, and buttermilk).

I now understand that a lot of people make HOMEMADE stuff that can easily be bought from store. One reason is like mine: we are getting plenty of milk for free, and very fresh at that. Just like canning produce while they abound, why not turn extra milk (after setting aside milk that we can consume as is) into something else? And the learning process is also exciting! 

RECIPE:
1 gal raw whole milk
2 tsp Citric Acid (I got from a brewing store)
1/4 Vegetarian Rennet tablet, crushed (I got from amazon)
1/4 cup sterile cold water (I boiled then let cool)
1 tsp kosher or sea salt

Equipment:

Stainless steel stockpot

Thermometer (I useWireless Talking BBQ Oven Thermometer ) 

Slotted spoon

Big microwaveable bowl

Gloves

METHOD:

The rennet tablets and citric acid

The rennet table is scored into 4

Crushed rennet

Rennet dissolved in cold sterile water

 Stir the citric acid into the milk. Heat on medium stirring occasionally until temp reaches 88 ºF. Meanwhile, whisk in the crushed rennet table in the sterile water.

Once temp reaches 88, add the rennet mixture and continuously stir while heating to reach 104-106 ºF. At this point, whey separates from curd.

Remove from heat and cover. Leave alone for 15-20 minutes.

Using slotted spoon, remove curds from whey and transfer to a big microwavable bowl. Squeeze out excess whey using the slotted spoon and remove. 

Removing curds

Curd transferred to microwavable bowl

Whey expressed out

Microwave on high one minute. Use spoon to express more whey out. Add salt.  Then either use same spoon or your gloved hand to stretch and fold (like kneading a dough) to express more whey. When shiny and elastic like taffy, microwave again on high for one minute. Stretch and fold repeatedly again until it becomes like chewing gum in elasticity, while still removing whey if there's any left. If it breaks easily, microwave another 30 minutes and repeat the process until smooth and elastic.

Microwaving the curds

Expressing out more whey

I could not take photos while I was doing this part so here is a snapshot of the page in the book

I came up with this round mozzarella that fits on my palm.

Store in a lidded container. Preferably consumed within a week.

Ready for the fridge

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