Homemade Mozzarella

This is one post that I've been sitting on for a couple months now. I've been a little reluctant to post this,  mainly because I fucked it up the first time I tried it. But, after some thought, and lack of anything else notable to write about, I said "what the hell".

What you see above is my first completed homemade mozzarella. I say "first completed" because the first run through I screwed up before I could even get the chance to stretch it out. After going back to the store for more milk, I tried it again and made it all the way through.

As far as cheese goes, fresh mozzarella is probably my second favorite. Number one? Homemade ricotta. Hands down. That said, mozzarella is a close runner-up. I love the soft texture and subtle flavor that mozzarella has. Add a little basil, a slice of tomato, and you've just created something magical.

When I decided that I was gonna try my hand at mozz,(I will refer to mozzarella as "Mozz" from this point on) I was really excited. Probably a little too excited. I don't mean that I jizzed in my pants or anything like that. It's just that when it was all over and done with, I was a bit let down on how it came out. It didn't taste bad at all. A coworker tried it and liked it, but I wasn't as happy with it as I thought I would be. I guess my expectations were too high. In any case, see for yourself and tell me what you think.

If you are thinking about trying your hand at mozz yourself, there is one thing you need to understand: It's a process. What I mean is, you can't think about doing this like you are going to make a casserole. There are a good number of steps to follow, and you have to be fairly precise on each step. I don't want to scare you off of making something, but if you have trouble following steps, this ain't for you.

On certain cooking shows, you might hear some asshole talking about going to the local grocer and buying cheese curds. That way, all you have to do is drop them in the hot water and start to stretch. Easy, right? That's fucking horse-shit! I don't know of any damn market this side of the Mississippi that sells curds! If they are selling curds, they damn sure aren't advertising it! Maybe I'm wrong, but I haven't found any place that sells curds.

That leads me to my next topic: Ingredients. To make mozz, you are gonna need rennet and citric acid. I've never seen these items at any store and ended up ordering them from Amazon. It's not that expensive, and in some cases, you can buy a whole kit on cheese making. I just bought the stuff I needed.

After looking at numerous sites on how to do this, I went with the step-by-step I found at www.chow.com. Lots of pictures with a clear layout. Check it out for yourself.

Step By Step

Unfortunately, I only have two hands and my photography skills suck balls. What that means is that I don't have that many pictures to show you how it all went down. I'll explain what happens as best I can. Really, I was going by the process I found at chow.

Once I had all my ingredients and tools ready, I started to heat the milk at about a medium-low flame. When the milk hit 55F, I added the citric acid. When it hit 88F, I added the rennet. No more stirring after this point.

When it reached the final temp of 105, I cut off the heat and let it rest for 30 minutes. At this point, it should be set enough to run a knife through.

From here, I scooped out the curds and drained them through cheese cloth. Now, this is where things went awry for me. The Chow link says not to drain the curds completely. I did that. When I dropped the curds in the hot water, the fucking curds dissolved! I was pissed to say the least. The next time around, I squeezed as much of the whey out as I could, and it seemed to work.

Now I ran into another problem: the curd didn't melt right away. The link says to heat the water to 180 degrees. I did that, and the curd wasn't melting. I went ahead and just boiled the water and it seemed to work just fine.

After I stretched the curd to what I thought was good, I rounded the mozz and dropped them into cold water.

Since I was going to do all this for fresh cheese, I went on and made some fresh bread to go with it.

Before I sliced that bread up, I had to try the mozz on its own. It was...good. It tasted like the mozz I remembered. But, I had this feeling like "That's it?". I guess I wanted it to be something more. Maybe the memories I have of it are on a pedestal I couldn't possibly match.

What I do know is that when i dressed it all up, it was lookin' awfully purtty! But not as purrty as your mouth!

To make things worse, my coworker Aimee made some mozz and brought some to work. I actually liked hers better than mine! I told her, too. I also told her that because of that, I was gonna have to hate on her for a while. Every time I walked past her, I would boo her. "BOOOOO!" would be my response to any question she had for me. Or anything in general she had to say to me!

Aimee: Hi Jason.
Me: BOOOOO!

Aimee: We need 24 baklava Jason.
Me: BOOOOO!

Then she had to go and help me finish an order the next day. So to be fair, I stopped hating on her. Damn Aimee! Being all nice and shit.

I don't even wanna talk no more.

I'm out.

J. Miller

P.S. BOOOOOOO!