Mozzarella Cheese Recipe Making fresh Mozzarella cheese at home

Traditional Mozzarella cheese is made from raw fresh Buffalo milk. You can get good results from regular pasteurized non-homogenized cow milk.

Ingredients

Basic Mozzarella Cheese

1. Whole milk (Pasteurized, non-homogenized): 1 Gallon
2. Fresh Lime or Lemon juice: 3 Tablespoons
3. Lipase powder (Optional): ¼ teaspoon.
Dissolve Lipase powder in 2 Tablespoons of distilled water. Let the solution rest for 20 minutes to develop flavors before use.
4. Calcium chloride (Optional): ½ teaspoon.
Dissolve Calcium chloride in 2 Tablespoons of distilled water for quicker dissipation
5. Rennet Enzyme: ½ Tablets.
Dissolve Rennet in ¼ cup of distilled water. Let the enzymes develop for 20 minutes before use.
6. Pickling Salt (Un-iodized): ½ teaspoon

Curing Mozzarella Cheese

7. Pickling Salt (Un-iodized) for curing solution: ¼ Cup (Optional)
8. Distilled water for curing solution: 6 cups (Optional)

Method

1. Pour milk in a heavy bottom stainless steel pot. Stir in lime juice, lipase solution, and calcium chloride solution.
2. Heat milk slowly on low stirring occasionally to prevent scorching on the bottom till it reaches 88º F. You will notice some of the milk has started to form curd because of lime juice and heat. Stir in rennet solution. Rennet gets activated at 88º F
3. Keep heating milk slowly on low till it reaches 105º F. Shut off heat. Remove the pot from heat. Keep it covered and let it incubate for about 25 minutes. The curd will look like yogurt. Insert a spoon or butter-knife in the curd and pull it out. It should come out ‘clean’ not milky, as the curd and whey have separated. Normally, this is called ‘clean break’. Coagulation process is complete.
4.Now we will cut the curd, cutting allows the whey to be released from curd. Use a stainless steel butter knife, cut across from side to side as parallel horizontal lines about ½” apart. Turn the pot around by 90º and cut again from side to side. You have created columns of curd, each with a ½” square top.
5. Turn on heat to slowly heat curd to 105º F on low. Try to maintain curd temperature between 105º F 108º for 15 minutes. The curd will release whey, shrink, and firm up. Continue stirring. After 15 minutes, shut off heat. Let it rest covered for another 15 minutes to firm up curd.
6. This step takes about 45 minutes where most of the whey is drained off. You can collect drained-off whey to make ricotta cheese. Line a colander with a ‘Butter Muslin’. Transfer contents to colander. Drain off whey for about 20 minutes. Take a slotted spoon, press curds against colander walls to squeeze out more whey to drain.
Sprinkle salt over the curd. Mix well. Gather the corners and tie them together. Hang it over the kitchen sink faucet. The whey will start dripping, and stop in about 10 minutes. Let it hang for a total of 20 minutes
7. During this process, we will heat curd to remove more whey till it is stretchy. We may have to heat the curd to 130º F. You can use a double boiler or microwave oven. We will use microwave oven. Remove curd from butter muslin. Cut it into ¾” cubes. Transfer the cubes to a microwave-proof bowl. Microwave curd for 1 minute at Hi. Salt and heat will cause curd to release more whey. Use paper-towels to soak-up and discard whey.

Microwave curd for 30 seconds. Remove whey. Pull a piece of cheese. If the piece breaks, repeat microwaving removing whey and pulling another piece till the piece is stretchy and does not break. At this point, the curd has become a gooey mass.
8. The temperature of gooey mass might have reached 130º F. Wear gloves. Knead cheese like dough for making bread. Pull and stretch dough till cheese becomes smooth and shiny. Continued stretching and pulling makes cheese firm and stringy. Gather cheese into a ball. Divide it into 4 smaller balls. Let the cheese cool to room temperature. The cheese is ready to eat. Wrap the cheese balls in plastic film and store in refrigerator.
9. Curing is an optional step. Add ¼ cup of un-iodized pickling salt to 6 cups of water, bring it to a boil. Let it cool to room temperature. Immerse unwrapped cheese balls in salted water and store in refrigerator for 24 hours. After 24 hours, remove the cheese balls from salt water, pat dry with paper towel, wrap in plastic film, and store in refrigerator.

Yield: 1 Pound approximately

TECHNICAL NOTES - Making Mozzarella cheese

Traditionally, mozzarella cheese is made from fresh raw buffalo milk; the milk is neither homogenized nor pasteurized.
- When using raw milk to make cheese, it is first sub-pasteurized by heating from 63º C to 65º C for 15 to 16 seconds to reduce initial high bacteria count. The sub-pasteurized milk may be heated to 72º C for 16 seconds to pasteurization. For making mozzarella cheese, sub-pasteurized milk is heated to 60º C for 16 seconds to preserve most of the natural enzymes that contribute to the distinct cheese flavor.
- Homogenization increases the fat surface area decreasing absorption by casein particles. Homogenized milk needs twice as much rennet to reach casein for coagulation. Goat milk is naturally homogenized and should not be used.
- Lipase enzymes occur naturally in raw milk and give mozzarella cheese its unique flavor. The lipase enzymes become inactive by pasteurization. Adding Lipase will make softer mozzarella cheese. You may need to add more rennet, to make firmer cheese.
- Pasteurization increases insoluble calcium and depletes soluble calcium in milk. Calcium helps with coagulation. Therefore, pasteurized milk needs more rennet. Calcium chloride is added to increase ionic calcium. You may also use crushed calcium supplement tablets. - If the milk was pasteurized at very high temperature (e.g. ultra-pasteurized milk), the cheese will wind up with the consistency of ricotta cheese. Do not use ultra-pasteurized milk - The curd needs a pH of 5.0 to 5.3 for it to become stretchable when heated. This is achieved by converting lactose to lactic acid. Also the milk is acidified by adding: lime juice, lemon juice, citric acid, vitamin C (Ascorbic acid), vinegar, or lactic acid in yogurt. Many recipes use 2 teaspoons of citric acid per gallon of milk for consistent results.
- Un-iodized salt is added to draw moisture from curd, enhance flavor, and help curing. Iodized salt retards curing and slows down coagulation process. - Rennet is used as the coagulating agent. It becomes active between 88º F and 90º F. For harder cheese use more rennet, for softer cheese use less rennet. - Lower butter-fat will make drier mozzarella cheese - When the whey is drained, you might try to save it. You can use the whey to make Ricotta cheese.