I followed the instructions very carefully. For a start, the recipe uses 8 pints of milk (which is about as much as we normally use in a fortnight!) so I had to lift out our biggest pan.
I duly heated up the milk, added the (non-animal) rennet and citric acid as directed and left the milk to separate into curds and whey. Note the thermometer, which allowed me to closely control the temperature.
8 pints of milk produce a LOT of curds!
The whey is supposed to be a "thin greenish-yellow fluid". I think this qualifies...
Now at this point the recipe tells you to heat the curds in a microwave oven for a minute. However we don't have a microwave oven, so I had to follow the "No Microwave" option - which in retrospect sounds very much like an afterthought! You form the curds into lumps and "dip" them in the hot whey (180F) for a minute using a ladle or sieve, after which you should be able to knead the curds like bread dough, until it becomes stretchy and elastic. It wasn't clear whether the ladleful of curds should be submerged or not.(I tried both ways).
This is where things began to go awry. Despite my best efforts I could not get the curds into a kneadable texture - and I'll tell you, I tried many different permutations. At one point I even tried floating some dollops of curd in the silicon "poach-pods" we use for poaching eggs! I won't bore you with any more details; let's just say that none of my efforts paid off.
So, I ended up with these:
Yes, that's right - several dollops of Cottage Cheese! For the sake of preserving a small shred of honour, I formed the cheese into rough balls, so that (from a distance) they might possibly be said (by a half-blind person) to resemble Mozzarella.
The texture is all wrong though. The cheese remained stubbornly crumbly and grainy. Not a hint of glossiness or elasticity. This is the best one, but it's still not good.
I have been racking my brains to try to understand where I went wrong, but I haven't figured it out yet, though in retrospect I have to say that there are a few clues in the recipe which make me think that perhaps making Mozzarella is a tad more tricky than they would have you believe. For example "...if it hasn't got hot enough in the liquid to be really stretchy, just eat it as it is!" and "If the Mozzarella doesn't taste exactly like the Mozzarella you're used to, call it something else and eat it anyway!"
I have to say I'm disappointed. I'm not averse to Cottage Cheese (though not in huge quantities), but I wanted Mozzarella! We had even bought avocadoes and tomatoes with which to make Insalata Tricolore... Oh well, you can't win 'em all.
Here's one of the ways in which I've used the cheese - with salt, pepper and chopped fresh Basil and a drizzle of EVOO:
I have used a similar Mozzarella/Ricotta cheese making kit here in the US with success. Was your milk ultra-pasteurized by any chance? I have access to somewhat local milk that is lightly pasteurized and it works, but higher heat changes the milk so that it doesn't come together properly for mozzarella. I hope you will try again.
ReplyDeleteHi Rachel; No, my milk was not UHT, it was the "ordinary" pasteurised stuff - full cream too. I think the real issue was that the curd did not reach the right temperature. Next time I'll borrow a microwave!
DeleteI agree with Rachel above, the UHT pasteurized milk might be the problem. Your technology though seems right. Maybe you could compare your recipe with this one here http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-homemade-mozzarella-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-174355
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough, I read that when I was having trouble with making the cheese! Maybe the milk I used WAS UHT milk, but just labelled as such??
DeleteI meant to write "but just NOT labelled as such."
DeleteI was going to buy one of these kits for a present for someone but changed my mind in the end - good job too from the look of it. What is EVOO?
ReplyDeleteEVOO = Extra Virgin Olive Oil. BTW: I don't think it is fair to write-off the kits just yet. I've only had one try!
DeleteA bit of a disappointment, but at least you created something edible so all was not lost. It sounds as though you really do need a microwave for this kit.
ReplyDeleteToo bad. I've only made farmers cheeses (with lemon juice or vinegar to make the curds). I've never tried a real cheese. If I did I'd want to make cheddar as it is my favorite.
ReplyDeleteGood choice! Still one of the world's best cheeses, when properly made and aged. I have actually seen Cheddar cheese being made in a dairy in Cheddar (the town in Somerset).
DeleteP.S. Just went and fish the empty milk bottles out of the recycling bin... Careful scrutiny reveals (in very small print) "Standardised, pasteurised, homogenised whole milk". There's the problem! It's not UHT that makes the difference, it's the homogenisation. Rats! I shall have to see if I can find some unpasteurised milk, maybe from an artisan dairy.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like it's too wet, you haven't drained out enough of the whey. You need to leave it to drain through a cheese cloth (jam cloth) overnight. Also it might be better to try & find a farmers market to buy some raw milk.
ReplyDeleteI followed the instructions to the letter, and they don't involve straining the curd - only "pouring off the excess". On the other hand, when you make Ricotta, (the other cheese in this kit) they direct that you strain the curd through muslin as you suggest.
DeleteHomogenised milk has the fat mechanically mixed into the rest of the milk so there is no cream layer. Possibly the homogenising process changes the way the curds and whey separate, and/or the content of the resulting curds. It's not so much unpasteurised milk you need (which could be difficult for home cheese makers to handle safely ?), but 'un-mixed' milk, which might be difficult to get from a supermarket.
ReplyDeleteI think you would be able to tell if it was UHT. I'd query with the kit producers referring them to your post.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year! Cheese making sounds a bit tricky... even with a kit and instructions. Your presentation of the end result looks appetizing, but as you say, it doesn't seem to resemble Mozzarella. (By the way, good on you for not having a microwave.)
ReplyDeleteBTW: The New England Cheesemaking.com site says homogenised milk is OK for mozzarella. Also that the curds must reach a temp of 135 F [57 C] to stretch ie almost too hot to handle for kneading (they heat the water to 175 F [80 C] to achieve this). The grainy texture could be the broken strands that failed to stretch. GOOD LUCK.
ReplyDeleteWell, I reckon they are wrong! I used the thermometer to ensure the temperatures of both curds and whey were right. In the kit's recipe the whey is heated to 180F.
Deletea bit of a disappointment but since the results are still edible....
ReplyDeletethis kind of stuff is such a disappointment... Im always dubious about cheese making kits, particularly when you think it takes years for artisans to perfect this kind of thing, why would it take you one day? Also, did you use buffalo milk?
ReplyDeleteYou are right of course! And no, Morrisons were right out of buffalo milk...so I had to use cows' milk!
DeleteI believe some Waitrose or Sainsburys in the South East sell the Laverstoke Park Buffalo milk, although I hate to think how much it would cost for 8 pints. I've driven past the Park (Hampshire I think) and you can see the Buffalo in the fields. The meat tastes good too. Of course this doesn't solve the microwave problem - it's got to be blasting the individual molecules of curd with microwaves (ie heat) that makes them behave and stretch. Don't know how they achieve this in commercial production - the blocks of cows mozzarella have a very different texture to the artisan buffalo balls of mozzarella. It's an interesting problem - if you're not desperate for a nice bit of cheese for your salad !!
DeleteLaverstoke Park is actually very close to where I live - though I can't claim to have seen the Buffaloes! I have eaten buffalo (Bhainsi) in Nepal once upon a time, though I think it must have died of old age because it was very tough. I might try using my brother's microwave - he lives only a couple of hundred yards from me.
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