This is as simple as cheese making gets and its ready to use in about an hour. The key to making great mozzarella is fresh milk, which is almost impossible to find these days. The fall back is to use lightly pasteurized milk, which again is virtually impossible to find. That leaves you with ultra high pasteurized milk the grocery stores sell. This is basically dead milk with no healthy microbes left, which is one reason why people aren’t as healthy today as they once were. I’ve made mozzarella from UHP but it’s not satisfying.
Ingredients
- 1 gallon whole milk – not ultra high pasteurized (UHP), will not curdle.
- 7 oz White distilled vinegar
Process
- Mise en Place – Measure and prepare ingredients prior to starting.
- Heat milk slowly in large pot until 115 F. Stir often.
- Turn off heat and stir in vinegar.
- Put lid on pot and let sit for five mins.
- Use a slotted spoon to scoop out milk curds and place in large bowl.
- Retain hot whey.
- Drain excess whey from bowl and start to knead – careful, cheese will be hot.
- Work curds into a ball, remove more whey – knead and stretch.
- Heat retained whey to 160 F.
- Submerse cheese ball in whey long enough to reheat.
- Remove cheese from whey and knead (+ stretch) out moisture.
- Repeat steps 9 & 10 two more times, working the whey out each time.
- Add salt (optional) and work cheese into a ball.
- Put cheese in cool bath. Let sit 5 mins.
- Add ice to water bath and let cheese sit an additional 5 mins.
- Put cheese in a container with water. Will keep for a week.
NOTE: Use left over whey as a water substitute in recipes, to water your plants, to drink as a protein source, or in my case, to treat my Lab to a high protein boast.
