I've always wanted to try making my own mozzarella. My doctrine has always kind of been, if I can make it myself rather than buying it, I'd rather do that. I like knowing everything that goes into the things around me, and when it comes to consumables, I like not being worried about contamination. I know I should say things like "I'm concerned about GMO's and preservatives and whatever" but I'm really not. I'm more worried about someone's disgusting unwashed hands touching my food. We all die someday. I'm cool with that. If it tastes good and won't make me die in an agonizing stomach flu sort of way, I'm all for it. I've made my own butter, I've made my own bread, I've grown my own vegetables, you get it. I'm handy.
So a while ago, I discovered this kit on Amazon. I really had no idea that you could make your own mozzarella; I guess I figured it required specialized equipment and tanks and procedures and laboratories or whatever. Once I discovered that I could make my own at home, I needed to do it. I asked for the kit in mine and my siblings' holiday gift exchange, but got a Chia Pet instead and was 100% fine with that. I kind of forgot about the whole cheesemaking thing until I saw these ladies making it and I thought, okay, how bad could this be?
Here are some misconceptions I was operating under, that I will dispel, so that you can go forth and make your own cheese, too:
MISCONCEPTION #1: You'll need a lot of expensive, specialized stuff in order to make your own mozzarella.
REALITY: A lot of blogs and videos will tell you that you MUST HAVE stainless steel everything, that you ABSOLUTELY MUST use cheese salt, and that you NEED milk that basically came straight out of a cow. I used my Le Creuset dutch oven because I'm fancy, but I'm sure you could use whatever giant pot you have at home. Just remember, it has to fit a gallon of milk in it. Other than that, you'll need citric acid and rennet (citric acid can be used to give homemade jellies and candies a tart taste, so you can use it again for that). Those are probably the only two things you'll actually need to buy for this. I was duped into thinking I needed to also buy cheese salt, thinking it was some critical component to some chemical reaction needed to make cheese or something. Nope. You already have salt at home. At long as it isn't the basic stuff (i.e. so long as it IS kosher salt or the fancy stuff I use), you're fine. You probably already have paper towels, a colander, an instant-read thermometer and a slotted spoon or a skimmer like I used. So you're good.
MISCONCEPTION #2: It's a delicate process and you absolutely cannot make a single mistake or else the entire thing will be ruined.
TRUTH: The first step says to bring the milk up to EXACTLY NINETY DEGREES. I turned my back for a split second and the milk was 105. Whoops. I kept going anyway. The Pioneer Women said that the mixture should basically congeal and turn into a custard-looking thing after five minutes in a certain stage. Mine didn't. I kept going. Guess what. It still worked fine.
MISCONCEPTION #3: It's going to take all day to make a single batch.
TRUTH: I think it literally took a half an hour, including clean-up.
Now that that's out of the way and you already know you can do this yourself, here's what I did, and here's what you'll need:
- A pot big enough to hold a gallon of milk, and its corresponding lid
- A slotted spoon or skimmer
- An instant-read thermometer
- A ton of paper towels
- A strainer/colander
- A bowl that will fit under your strainer/colander
- A gallon of whole milk (not ultra pasteurized, apparently, but regular pasteurized grocery store milk is fine)
- citric acid (1 1/2 tsp per batch)
- rennet (1/4 tsp per batch) - mixed with a cup of water
- salt (like, maybe 1 tsp, depends on how salty you want your cheese I guess)
- faith
Step 1: Pour your citric acid and 1/4 cup of water into your pot and stir it until all the powder is dissolved. Add your milk to that and stir it. It's going to look gross after like ten seconds so just be ready for that. Heat everything over medium-low heat. It's going to start off pretty cold, like 50° or whatever your fridge temperature is. But you need to get the mixture up to 90° (or, you know, around there, as I did. HEH). This will not take long at all, and the pot won't look like it's boiling, so just keep checking it with your thermometer.
Step 2: When everything hits 90°, remove your pot from the heat, and add your rennet/water mixture, and stir everything gently. Reverse direction of your stirring so the mixture stops moving. Then put a lid on your pot and leave it alone for five minutes. It will be looking like this when you put the lid on:
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| Mmmmm |
Step 3: The Pioneer Woman says after your five minutes are up, you'll have a solid little jelly/custard-like consistency inside your pot. I did not. Five minutes elapsed and my mixture looked exactly the same, exactly as it looks in that picture. So I thought, okay I screwed up, and left it with the lid on for another five minutes. Opened the lid up expecting success, and instead it looked exactly. the. same. Whatever, screw it, I'm going with what I have here.
Step 4: The Pioneer Woman says at this stage, to slice up your curd. Since I didn't have the same smooth and perfect consistency that they had, I had nothing to cut. So I just used a butter knife and just sort of angered my curd up a bit. Then they say to return it to medium heat and stir until the whey (the yellowish liquid surrounding your solids) reaches 105°. For me, this happened in like zero seconds.
Step 5: Use your slotted spoon or skimmer to transfer the solids from your pot into the colander set over a bowl. Actually I'm not really sure why you need the bowl, if your pot and colander are by your sink? Or whatever. You just don't want to be making a disgusting puddle of whey all over your kitchen I guess. So transfer your solids from your pot into your colander. Mine looked like this at this stage:
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| I didn't gag once. Can you believe it? |
Then, you're going to pick up that delicious-looking ball, and squeeze the heck out of it. Your end-goal is to get as much of the whey out of it as you can. Just really go to town on it. I wrapped mine in paper towels and just pummeled it inside the colander.
Step 5: The Pioneer Woman microwaves the ball a few times at this point, I guess to get more of the whey out? But come on.
So I just kept squeezing, and stretching, and squeezing, and stretching, and mushing everything with a billion paper towels, until it started feeling like actual mozzarella and not oatmeal and glue mixed together. Then you knead in your salt, and stretch everything out. At this point I divided up my curds into two balls, because it actually produces a lot of cheese. You, however, can do whatever the hell you want. Want a giant log of mozzarella? Knock yourself out. Prefer bocconcini? Cool. Do it.
Step 6: Take that useless bowl that you had under your colander, empty it out of the whey that drained out, and fill it with ice and water. Take your newly-formed balls of cheese and drop them in. Let them hang out in there until they've cooled off, which shouldn't take too long. Maybe like three minutes.
THE END. YOU DID IT.
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| It's not pretty, but it's mine |
Seriously! That's it! Your kitchen will most likely be trashed at this point, and for that I'm not even sorry because you got delicious homemade mozzarella out of the deal. They say to store whatever you don't immediately eat in a container with salted water, but that just made mine look like a science experiment:
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| Shown: Science experiment, in the OXO container by the eggs, on the left |
So, do whatever you want. My advice is to just eat it right away. Don't take any chances.
Making mozzarella is really easy, you can't really mess it up, and the special ingredients you'll need for it end up being like $10 for what will most likely make about 96 batches of cheese. And since one single ball of cheese (half of what I made) costs $8 at the store, you can't really beat it.
Bon appétit!
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| I grew those tomatoes, too. No big |
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