In this installment
Home Cheesemaking Kit
Recipe
Home Cheesemaking Kit
We’ve been selling this home cheese making kit at our Creamery in Ann Arbor for a while now, and folks have been, well, eating it up.
Easy to follow instructions make it a great gift for kids, cheese lovers and families that cook together. Every box comes with rennet and citric acid—enough for 30 batches of cheese—as well as instructions on how to make your own mozzarella or ricotta from scratch. All you need to provide is milk and salt. It takes less than an hour to turn the milk into cheese.
My first attempt produced a fine looking mozzarella ball that I quickly turned into a salad with tomatoes, fresh basil and olive oil. Easy and delicious!
Mozzarella Recipe
1 gallon milk (not ultra-pasteurized)
1 1/4 cup cool water
1 1/2 tsp. citric acid
1/4 rennet tablet
1 tsp. salt
- Dissolve 1/4 rennet tablet into 1/4 cup of cool, chlorine-free water. Stir and set aside. Wrap the remaining pieces of tablet in pastic wrap and store in the freezer.
- Mix 1 1/2 teaspoons citric acid into 1 cup cool, chlorine-free water until dissolved. Pour into your pot.
- Pour 1 gallon of milk into your pot and stir vigorously.
- Heat the milk to 90°F while stirring.
- Remove the pot from the burner and slowly stir in the rennet solution with an up and down motion for approximately 30 seconds.
- Cover teh pot and leave it undisturbed for 5 minutes.
- Check the curd. It should look like custard, with a clear separation between the curd and the whey. If the curd is too soft or the whey is milky, let set for a few more minutes.
- Cut the curd with a knife that reaches to the bottom of your pot.
- Place the pot back on the stove and heat to 105℉ while slowly moving the curds around with your spoon.
- Take off the burner and continue slowly stirring for 2-5 minutes.
- Pour off the floating whey.
- Heat a pot of water to 185℉.
- Ladle your curds into a colander, folding the curds gently as you drain off the whey.
- Dip the curds in the colander into the hot water. After several times take a spoon and fold the curds until they start to become elastic and stretchable. This happens when the curd temperature reaches 135℉.
- When it is stretchable remove the curd from the liquid adn pull like taffy. This stretching elongates the proteins. If it does not stretch easily, return it to the hot water for more heat.
- At this point you can add 1 tsp more or less of salt. Stretch the cheese until it’s smooth and shiny. (Now we usually slice off a few pieces and eat it hot. Yum!)
- You can now form your cheese into a log, ball, braid, bite size morsels or even string cheese.
- When finished, submerge it in 50℉ water to cool for 5 minutes and then in ice water for 15 minutes. This will cool it down and allow the cheese to hold its shape. This step is critical as it protects the silky texture and keeps it from becoming grainy.