Making Mozzarella Cheese

[Captain N]

Last weekend I successfully made my first batch of mozzarella! It was the very basic method, milk, rennet, citric acid, and a little salt.

The texture was perfect, but it was a little bland. Do any cheese makers have suggestions on how to get good flavor on their cheese? And during what point do you make those additions?

Thanks!

Captain N

 

[GLC]

I'm about to get into it, and I've been reading. One thing I ran into on a site with technical information for pizza restaurants talked about aging in its discussion of what happens to mozzarella before it gets to them. It claims aging for between one and four weeks is necessary to develop some flavor. But one must not overage, for it will then get soft and runny.

Another discussion of why restaurant mozzarella always seems so much better claims that the difference is the heavier amount of salt used by the restaurant, presumably in its storage or marination of the cheese.

And I understand one can add mild lipase powder (Italase) to the recipe to add flavor. Add 1/8 to 1/4 tsp after the citric and before the rennet. Adjust amount to according to final taste. It is specifically recommended when using pasteurized milk, because the milk's natural lipase if destroyed during pasteurization. It can also be used when using cow's milk to make cheeses traditionally made with goat milk, like feta.

I suspect one must take care with how long one stores or ages mozzarella made with added lipase, since lipase produced by errant bacteria is part of the state of spoiled milk.

Speaking of mozzarella, I just received some burrata, because AlmaGourmet had it on sale, and it sounds like an easy lick to divert part of a mozzarella batch to it. Makes a neat presentation to cut the "sack" vertically in half.

 

[FrankZ]

Did you also make some ricotta?

 

[Captain N]

GLC, thanks for the advice, that give me a lot to go on. Do you know where you can buy lipase?

FrankZ, not yet, but I did see that you can save the whey to make ricotta, I haven't looked at the process though

 

[FrankZ]

As I understand it you have to use the whey right away if you want to make ricotta. You can't wait long.

Kathleen has done this a couple times, the ricotta doesn't take very long and is a good way to get that little bit extra out.

 

[GLC]

GLC, thanks for the advice, that give me a lot to go on. Do you know where you can buy lipase?

Here:
- Lipase Powder-Italase-(mild) 2oz. #L3

Or, I got mine here, because it just up the road, and the shipping is reasonable.
Austin Homebrew Supply

It's kind of cheap to be paying shipping on just that. Check first locally. A lot of homebrew supply places carry cheese ingredients.

 

[GLC]

Well. I made mozzarella Saturday. Got just under a pound from a gallon of whole milk. Very mild, as is all new mozzarella made without lipase or some flavoring. I'll let it age for a week, since that's said to deepen the flavor, and next time, I'll use lipase.

The whey, of which not much less than the original gallon is left over, I put back on the stove and cooked down to gjetost. Took about 12 hours of simmer. Very credible gjetost flavor, a quite sharp caramel-like taste and about as hard as cream cheese. Stronger than the import I've bought at the grocery, and I didn't take it down so dark or so that it would set up so solid. A bit grainy. Gjetost is often mind of grainy, but I think I can whip it more before it sets and fix that. Have to read up. But that's not bad to get the mozzarella and 10 ounces of gjetost from a gallon of milk.

Total cost was $3.58 for milk
1.00 (less than) cheese ingredients
------
4.58

Reasonably good mozzarella seems to run about $12 a pound.
Whatever USDA is reporting on as "mozzarella" when they report wholesale price runs either side of $2.50 a pound wholesale. (Kraft brick?) I think the deli fresh mozzarella at my local store is somewhere high of the midpoint between those.

Gjetost, mixed milk, runs around $8 per half pound. I made 10 ounces. I figure to lose a couple more ounces cooking it down hard. So I can't complain about the products of the gallon of milk and the short time involved.

 

[taxlady]

Well. I made mozzarella Saturday. Got just under a pound from a gallon of whole milk. Very mild, as is all new mozzarella made without lipase or some flavoring. I'll let it age for a week, since that's said to deepen the flavor, and next time, I'll use lipase.

The whey, of which not much less than the original gallon is left over, I put back on the stove and cooked down to gjetost. Took about 12 hours of simmer. Very credible gjetost flavor, a quite sharp caramel-like taste and about as hard as cream cheese. Stronger than the import I've bought at the grocery, and I didn't take it down so dark or so that it would set up so solid. A bit grainy. Gjetost is often mind of grainy, but I think I can whip it more before it sets and fix that. Have to read up. But that's not bad to get the mozzarella and 10 ounces of gjetost from a gallon of milk.

Total cost was $3.58 for milk
1.00 (less than) cheese ingredients
------
4.58

Reasonably good mozzarella seems to run about $12 a pound.
Whatever USDA is reporting on as "mozzarella" when they report wholesale price runs either side of $2.50 a pound wholesale. (Kraft brick?) I think the deli fresh mozzarella at my local store is somewhere high of the midpoint between those.

Gjetost, mixed milk, runs around $8 per half pound. I made 10 ounces. I figure to lose a couple more ounces cooking it down hard. So I can't complain about the products of the gallon of milk and the short time involved.

I'm impressed that you decided to go for making gjetost rather than ricotta. Of course, unless you used some goat's milk, it can't technically be gjetost. (gjet = goat, ost = cheese). I think I'm going to have to find a source of gjetost. I'm starting to get a hankering.

 

[GLC]

My grocery store always has it. Ski Queen brand, which seems to be the most common. Comes as about a two-inch cube in a red wrap. I guess I've got the right tongue for it, because to me it has nearly the taste and texture of caramel, which is really what it is. I suppose I should really call mine brunost, brown cheese. That makes more sense, because there are plenty of goat cheeses that are not brown whey cheeses.

Actually, I started to make ricotta, but I quickly realized I didn't have an appropriate size mesh, and coffee filter paper immediately clogged. So I went back to the stove for brunost. I wonder how much brunost I would get if I had already taken the ricotta out of the whey. It's said you can get both and that it's a useful amount.