Quick Mozzarella – New Supplies
Quick Mozzarella is often touted as a great intro cheese to make; this is not the case. Quick Mozzarella is convenient because there are few ingredients needed: milk, citric acid (or vinegar), rennet, and salt. The process is relatively quick with the entire process taking only a couple hours. The difficulty is the precision needed to be able to stretch the curd. The proteins need the cheese to be in the range of 5.2 to 5.4 pH in order to be plasticized (pliable); too basic, the curd will not stretch; too acidic, the curd will fall apart.
A quick aside: Mozzarella is part of the ‘pasta filata’ cheese family. Provolone, scamorza, and caciocavallo are also members of this family of stretched or kneaded cheeses. Acidity levels have always been key to this process. If lacking in a pH meter or strips, the historic process was doing a stretch test (i.e., see if it is pliable yet) or pressing a hot iron to the curd to see if it stretches as the iron is pulled away. It’s your choice.
This make of Quick Mozzarella was a test run for me. I had made Quick Mozzarella often in San Francisco, but I was now using ingredients and quantities that were new to me. I had at my disposal four liters of raw milk and rennet that was labeled as being concentrated at 1:1000. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I had measuring spoons at my disposal (mL would have been more appropriate in general and in Germany).
When one is making “true” Mozzarella, cheese cultures are added to the milk and are allowed to ripen it (i.e., consume the lactose and produce lactic acid). After an hour or two, the milk will drop about 0.2 pH (from 6.6 pH) and rennet will be introduced. The curd will be cut and then stirred and allowed to ripen further. After draining and waiting many more hours, the curd will reach the appropriate pH range for stretching. But who has time for that?
Quick Mozzarella Process
When the milk is still cold, add a half tablespoon of rehydrated citric acid (or three-fourths cup of vinegar) per gallon of milk. This will drop the pH to the right range without all the waiting. If added when the milk is warm (i.e., above 70°F), you’ll be making ricotta, which is delicious, but wrong. Also important is to keep stirring, without splashing, to minimize curdling of the milk. We want the rennet to do form the curd, not the drop in pH. One drawback of using acid to change the pH is the loss of flavor that would be developed by cultures. You can get around this by adding a pinch of lipase powder for some spice, if handy.
After heating the milk to 90°F, add in about one-half teaspoon of rennet diluted in some water, quickly mix and stop the movement of the milk. The rennet will coagulate the milk, and any movement will cause the curd mass to rip. Single-strength rennet has a concentration of Chymosin of about 1:10,000 to 1:15,000. If you have double-strength rennet, use half as much rennet. Know that most if not all of vegetarian rennet is double-strength. Too much rennet will cause your final cheese to be too bitter. My calculations to adjust my recipe for the 1:1000 rennet purchased were off; I used way too much rennet – the final mozzarella on Day 2 was quite bitter. I’m still investigating this.
With the pH and temperature of the milk, the curd will form in three minutes and should be ready to cut in eight minutes. Cut the curd into approximately one inch cubes; I prefer using diagonal cuts so I don’t have to deal with cuts parallel to the surface. Slowly get the cubes in motion; you will tear some of them apart, but try to minimize this. When in motion, slowly heat to 95°F over 10 minutes. The curds should shrink and whey should accumulate.
Drain the curd into a colander. Allow to rest for 20 minutes, flipping halfway through. You should now have a mass of white curd ready to be stretched. Heat up some heavily-salted water to between 160°F and 175°F. Cut small strips from the curd mass; the idea is to make them small enough so that they are able to be heated quickly by the water. Place these strips into the bowl with some of the heated water and allow time to warm up. After a minute or so, pick up one end of the strip(s). Ideally, the strips will stretch from their own weight. Work the ‘dough’ enough that it shines a bit, but do not overwork the mozzarella. Form the ‘dough’ into a ball, braid it, or create a pretzel, then drop it into some cold water in order to keep its shape.
That is Quick Mozzarella. As the cheese does not have any cultures to fight off bad bacteria (i.e., all that lactose is still available to be consumed), do enjoy the cheese within two days.
