Ok so the photo isn’t great, and my mozzarella balls are nowhere the smooth perfectly round ones you find in the store, so you’ll have to take my word for it that it tastes great!
These are a huge hit whenever I make them into Caprese skewers (cut into cubes and thread onto skewers with cherry tomatoes, then marinate in vinaigrette) or even just sliced into a salad.
It’s not as hard or as time-consuming as you’d think, either! Here are the basic steps. For a photo tutorial, check out cheesemaking.com, where you can also buy ingredients. You can find most of these ingredients online at other cheesemaking shops as well; or, if you live in West Michigan, you can buy them at Sicilianos, which is where my husband buys his brewing supplies.
What you’ll need
- 1 gallon of milk (raw is best; ‘ULTRA’ pasteurized won’t work)
- 1/2 C cool non-chlorinated water
- 1 1/2 tsp- 2 1/2 tsp Citric acid (I use 1 1/2 on my raw milk and it works fine)
- 1/4 Rennet Tablet (or 1/4 tsp if using liquid rennet)
- 1-2 tsp cheese salt (to taste)
- 4 qt pot (non reactive, not aluminum or cast iron)
- Crush the 1/4 rennet tablet in 1/2 C cool water, stir to dissolve, and set aside.
- Pour 1/2 C cool water and 1 1/2 tsp citric acid into the pot and stir to dissolve.
- Add 1 gallon of milk and heat to 88F. Remove from burner and add the rennet solution, stirring for 30 seconds. Allow to set for 5-8 minutes.
- Cut the curds with a knife into 1 ” cubes
- Ladle curds into a microwaveable bowl and press gently, removing as much whey as possible.
- Microwave the curds for 1 minute; gently knead (you want to get as much whey out as possible as this can cause souring later) until it cools off; reheat for 35 seconds and knead again. Reheat another 35 seconds and on this kneading cycle add the salt.
- You can tell when it’s done because it will stretch like taffy and it will be shiny.
- Place in ice water until cool and voila! Homemade mozzarella cheese.
This recipe also shared on Kitchen Tip Tuesdays, Real Food Wednesdays, Works for Me Wednesday,
Things I Love Thursday, Pennywise Platter Thursday , Simple Lives Thursday
and Frugal Friday
I have made a lot of my own things in the past few months, I have not tried cheese… you may have inspired me 🙂 I am stopping over from SITS!! I would love it is you could stop by and enter my fabulous giveaway!
Cheers,
marycatherine
http://www.stylishsaving.com/2010/08/giveaway-ali-blossoms-bowtique.html
Where do you find citric acid? And I have rennet (liquid) but it is “double strength” so I would seriously have to do the math here. And about how much do you get from 1 gal. of milk? Like 1 # of cheese?
I SO want to try this!
Hi Cindy, you can get the citric acid at Sicilianos. I think double strength would work, the curds would just be nice and firm (in fact, that’s one of the solutions to curd that’s too soft – to double the rennet). 1 gallon of milk makes about 3/4 lb of cheese.
This has been on my to-do list for awhile now. I simply love fresh mozzarella!
My youngest son is our cheese maker and he just made a batch of mozzerella for us. Your right it is so delicious. We practically eat it all in one day.
We are about out of rennet so will be ordering some more.
Great blog post.
Lorna who’s always busy on the farm.
Thanks for posting this. I’ve been wanting to try this recipe for a while now…maybe this will motivate me.
It looks like this makes a decent amount of cheese. How many pounds would you say it makes? One? Two? This has been on my “to do” list and you just made it seem so simple, I want to try it. But then I think, how much does it cost to make? I imagine it very per batch. Also, is it thick enough that you can create shredded mozzarella with it? We love mozzarella and I’m thinking this could save us a lot of money! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
It makes about 3/4 pound, and it does vary. If you doubled the rennet you could shred it – I believe that Ricki has directions on her site (cheesemaking.com). It is super yummy!
Is there a way to make it without microwaving?
Yes! You’ll need rubber gloves though. The instructions can be found in the above link to cheesemaking.com. Here’s a link to their FAQ page: http://www.cheesemaking.com/store/pg/242-FAQ-Mozzarella.html
I have made whole milk ricotta before, but never mozzarella. I would like to give this a try after canning season when I have more time. Thanks for the instructions.
-Brenda
Thanks for adding this to Simple Lives Thursday! I’ve never considered making cheese before, but you made it look easy. I’m going to have to give it a try. Probably not till winter…when I’m done with all of my canning…but it’s on my to-do list now!
I’ve tried this twice and my cheese bombed both times!! I took pictures last time so it will be a “Friday Food Flop” soon. Bummer, eh?!
Kelly
When I first started I would have some that would turn out ricotta instead of mozzarella. I’m not sure why, but I seem to have gotten the hang of it. My husband the homebrewer suggested I start writing down EXACTLY what I did each time. For me the problem was sometimes I’d let the milk overheat too much. Also, if you are not using raw milk, you may need to add another step of heating the curds (described on their website).
The other thing I realized is that using rennet in tablet form means very uneven quantities since I’m breaking it by hand. Now I know to use two pieces if the quarter ends up too small.
I’ve never had good luck with the microwave version either – that is interesting you aren’t using a culture but are using citric acid. I wonder the reason chemically behind it? Just the nerd in me speaking. Did this turn out tough or creamy for you? And how was the flavor? I’ve been making it using buttermilk as the culture lately but never with citric acid. This is totally geekish but do you know if that effects the pH at all?
Thanks for linking up to Simple Lives Thursday!
The flavor really depends on the milk. I’ve noticed that with home dairy products – definitely tastes more like milk than store-bought which tastes more like plastic. This turned out creamy, but you can make it harder by using more rennet. I have not played with pH yet but in the directions on the website they do give the balances you should aim for.
While I’ve yet to successfully make a ball of mozzarella cheese, I have done a lot of reading in the last week or so (to give you a base for my “knowledge” 😉 ) and from what I can gather, raising the acidity through the addition of citric acid gives the cheese that fantastic stretch that it’s known for.
As for my failures (3 so far) I think I can attribute it to the use of Junket Rennet, the kind that’s most widely available. It’s the only one I can find locally so I’ve had to order some. Apparently, it’s 5 times weaker than regular rennet and increasing the amount doesn’t work because the properties are different. Just a little FYI for any other newbies.