Year of Cheese: Mozzarella

I may have been a little overzealous by declaring 2013 the Year of Cheese!  As I began reading more in my cheese-making book I realized lots of cheeses need to age in very specific conditions, usually around 55 degrees and high humidity, for many months.  Though it stays unusually cool in our apartment, I'm not sure I can guarantee a constant 55 degrees.  I'm working on some possible solutions though.

Luckily I still have a ways to go until I'm ready to try making aged cheeses and there are plenty of fresh curd cheeses that are delicious and I decided to give mozzarella a shot.  I had to purchase some additional ingredients (rennet, culture, a pH meter, heat proof gloves) and I ended up turning a $4 half gallon of milk in to a $4 ball of mozzarella and it only took me 10 hours.

The most difficult thing I think in cheese making is that you need to hold the milk within a very specific temperature range for an extended period of time.  In making this mozzarella I held the milk within 2 degrees of 90 degrees for a couple of hours.  I accomplished this by keeping the milk in my small pot and set it in a water bath.  I kept thermometers in both pots to keep a close eye on the temperature.

After the curd developed from the addition of rennet and culture I sliced the cheese in to curds to let the whey drain.

After some more heating of the curds I drained the whey.

I then reheated the curds which melted together and gave off more whey.

As the curds melted back together I was waiting for the cheese to reach a pH of 5.2.  After a couple of hours I eventually gave up and settled with a pH of 5.4, mostly because it was getting close to bedtime and I wasn't sure how accurately calibrated my pH meter was.

At this point I cut up the curds again.  I heated up the reserved whey and prepared to melt the curds back together while stretching the curd and forming a ball. 

I created a brine using quite a bit of salt and the reserved whey.  The cheese soaked in the brine overnight and then I stored it in the fridge wrapped in plastic.

The final result was delicious but a bit too salty because I let it sit in the brine a few hours too long.  Now I know to follow brining instructions more closely.