How to make mozzarella cheese at home.
Mozzarella is a soft, fresh, and unripened cheese originating from Italy. Originally made only from buffalo milk, its immense popularity has led producers to also make mozzarella from cow's milk.
It is characterized by a delicate and milky taste and incredible stretchiness.
Mozzarella cheese is most often produced in the form of one larger ball or several smaller ones, and is stored and sold in a light brine.
An exception is pizza mozzarella, which is vacuum-sealed or packaged in heat-shrink bags to prevent the formation of a rind.
Mozzarella is an ingredient in many popular dishes and it is impossible to imagine pizza or lasagna without it. Nowadays, many producers make mozzarella using an accelerated method, by acidifying the milk to the appropriate pH with citric or lactic acid.
Below you will find a traditional recipe for mozzarella cheese, which involves the addition of bacterial cultures that acidify the cheese to the appropriate pH.
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| Homemade mozzarella |
Ingredients needed to make mozzarella cheese:
10 liters of raw or pasteurized milk (I used pasteurized milk at 65°C for 30 minutes)
2ml of calcium chloride for pasteurized milk
Thermophilic cultures according to the manufacturer's dosage:
Streptococcus salivarius subsp. thermophilus In addition to streptococcus thermophilus, you can also use
Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus
Lactobacillus helveticus
2ml of calf rennet 1:20000 or another rennet according to the manufacturer's dosage
Some hand protection is necessary: I used thick rubber gloves and a pair of nitrile gloves. -
- Alternatively, hands resistant to 80°C are required ;)
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| Stretching mozzarella cheese |
Recipe for mozzarella cheese:
Add 2ml of calcium chloride to 10l of milk.
This step can be skipped if using unpasteurized milk.
Heat the milk to 33°C, stirring constantly.
At 33°C, remove the pot from heat.
Add thermophilic cultures according to the manufacturer's instructions and mix well.
Leave the milk to mature for 90 minutes under cover. During this time, bacteria will slowly begin to multiply and consume lactose, which will lead to a slight decrease in pH.
Then, add 2ml of rennet to the milk and mix thoroughly but briefly (about a minute).
Cover the pot and leave it for about 30 minutes to form curd.
After obtaining the curd, cut it into approximately 1cm cubes using a knife or harf.
Leave the curd for 5 minutes to strengthen.
Then, heat the contents of the pot to 40°C in about 15 minutes - stirring constantly.
Once 40°C is reached, remove the pot from the heat, cover it and leave it for 60 minutes.
After 60 minutes, drain the whey and transfer the curd to a strainer or a mold.
Place the strainer or mold with the curd back into the pot, cover it, and maintain the temperature inside the pot as close to 40°C as possible. The purpose of this step is to acidify the cheese mass to the appropriate pH, which is about 5.1-5.2. Acidification will take from 2 to even 6 hours, so it is important to monitor the pH using a pH meter or litmus strips.
During acidification in the pot, the cheese can be turned over once or even several times to evenly catch the temperature.
When the cheese reaches a pH of about 5.1-5.2 (for me, usually after about 3 hours), remove it from the pot and cut it into strips about 1cm thick or slightly smaller.
If you do not have a pH meter or litmus strips, to make sure the cheese is ready, throw a piece into hot water, leave it for a moment and start stretching it lightly, then put it back into hot water and stretch it again. If the cheese stretches into a long and thin strip - it means it is ready. If the cheese still does not cooperate, wait until the pH drops further and try again later. There is no point in forcing the entire cheese if you know it is not ready.
At the moment when we remove the cheese from the pot and cut it into strips, pour the whey that we previously drained into the pot and heat it to 80°C. - If you did not leave any whey, you can use plain water.
Place the properly acidified and cut cheese in a deep bowl. Cover it with hot water or whey and mix for a few moments.
The water will cool down slightly from the cheese, so drain it and pour hot water over the cheese again.
Mix and gather the cheese into a single mass. If the water has cooled down, replace it - it is important for the cheese to maintain the temperature throughout the mass.
When the cheese is sufficiently heated, start stretching it.
Stretch the cheese until it is uniform and shiny. If necessary, put it in hot water every once in a while.
Shape the stretched and well-worked cheese into balls, braids, or any other shape, and put it in cold and lightly salted water.
Cool the finished cheeses in the refrigerator.
We store cheeses in lightly salted water with a 0.2% addition of calcium chloride.
In case of problems with storing in the brine - such cheeses can be dried and vacuum-packed.
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