How To Make PERFECT Mozzarella In Just 30 Minutes!

good good morning my name is Jennifer today I'm making mozzarella cheese Mozzarella cheese Mozzarella mozzarella I don't know I say Montreal anyway I have a love hate relationship with mozzarella it's supposedly like super easy anybody can make it it's fast blah blah blah I have done it like oh this is no big deal and I have bombed lots of times at one point I even filmed this whole process with a different version of the recipe and it bombed I gave up I have lots of mozzarella in my freezer like I make it and I have it and I use it but it's just a little finicky and a little harder this is not a beginner's cheese though you might make it and be like totally easy it's much easier to buy in the store you don't want to struggle a little bit what I have here is two gallons of milk almost to the brim and I'm gonna add a little bit of this milk because it's not quite two gallons there we go it's full fat which it doesn't have to be you can use skim milk or like skim off the cream mozzarella is a good one to use if you want to make butter like make yogurt with your skim milk make mozzarella with your skim milk make like high like parmesans and asiagos and all that with your skim milk or partially skim milk I'm just going to make full fat mozzarella it's a lot of fat you're supposed to start out with room temperature milk before you add the citric acid to acidify the milk so this is still fridge cold I'm going to heat it for about five minutes just to bring it up to about you know 50 55 degrees in the meantime we're going to get our citric acid going I get this from Amazon it's a pound and it lasts forever it's also good for making gummy candies with like natural rinds the recipe is on my blog oh so good just buy it by the pound it'll last for forever her recipe one and a half teaspoons of citric acid dissolved in water I'm going to do a double recipe so I'm doing a tablespoon it just looks like it was like really fine sea salt or sugar use about a half cup or so whatever I'm just gonna stir till it dissolves it's pretty dissolved so there's my citric acid the purpose of citric acid is to bring the milk pH which is right around I forget what it is six seven somewhere up there and it's supposed to drop it I think to four I should rate these numbers down I'll correct myself in the in the comments thingies in the the words right here but you drop it down to like four or something and that is the right pH for mozzarella citric acid does it fast like boom it drops it but it doesn't have flavor if you want to Culture Your to have a cultured mozzarella then you use regular thermophilic cultures because it's going high temperatures and you let it sit for hours and the pH drops more slowly and your cheese has more flavor and that's how you make a cultured mozzarella the other thing with mozzarella is you don't have to worry too much about being all sterile and clean because this is going to get heated up to like hot like 150 degrees or so so you're going to be killing stuff and I just don't worry about it other thing you need this is optional is lipase powder and I hate light paste powder I have used it in aged cheeses and to me it makes them taste like vomit it's in the back of the throat like using a Manchego and parmesans are just I hate that flavor maybe I'm not doing it right maybe I don't understand what good cheese is supposed to be but it's just so bad so this is a mild lay paste keep it in my freezer I've had it for years a year two years what you're supposed to do is take an eighth of a teaspoon per gallon of milk and dissolve it in the water because it's two gallons it's a fourth I hate this in aged cheeses I think it's horrible but in fresh cheeses it adds a little bit more flavor fresh cheese does not have all that culturing all that Nuance that comes over time and you know with the cultures and then that weight that makes it have that Nuance did I just say that I just said that so anyway lipase will add some character to your mozzarella and it just makes it a little bit less flat a little bit more Punchy you're not going to notice it really but it's just a little bit of a lift a boost it's like adding salt to scrambled eggs just makes them better and this looks kind of like where's my glasses almost like whole wheat flour like just clear look see it's just like a little bit of a whole wheat flour a quarter teaspoon of this and some water and it kind of floats it's hard to dissolve it's a little bit clumpy almost like yeast but even more so I just kind of mush it and don't worry about it there we go I'm gonna temp this and see where we're at I'm gonna be right around 55 degrees or room temperature so it could be more oh we're at 63 but yeah it's great when you add the citric acid when the milk is too hot it will immediately start to curdle you want to do it a little bit cooler and just Stir It In oh yep you can see some of the curdling but it's not bad a little chunkies that's totally fine then you stir in the light paste I'm going to use a spatula to get it all in you can see this floating there that's fine it'll dissolve and now you want to heat this up to 95 degrees while that is heating let's do the rennet the rennet from mozzarella is one quarter teaspoon per gallon of milk I'm going to do a half teaspoon then you just dilute it with a little bit of water the one other way I have made mozzarella I made my fat cow cheese and it didn't turn out right it got all mushy and so I tore it back up and then I tested it in the microwaves if I can melt it back down and stretch it in the mozzarella and I could and I did and it was amazing because it was a cultured mozzarella because it's slowly acidified not using the citric acid if you want to look at that recipe and see that whole process I'll link to it right here 94 and yep 95. adding the rennet stir that in briefly so this sits for five to seven minutes setting the timer for seven and we're gonna let it set up it's pretty quick it's called quick mozzarella for a reason so you splice and then dig down in and lift that's set though it does look a little slumpy to me and that could be because of all the cream hmm I think I'm gonna give it two more minutes to set let's cut and check yeah still kind of loose but I think it's a little bit firmer you do not need to be as picky with cutting it can be columns however you want I'm going to give it one minute here just to like heal just a little bit you don't really need to though and then we're gonna start heating it and stirring it you can see how much the Whey is coming up already so I'm just going to start slowly stirring this oh yeah it looks really nice soft and voluptuous and now this gets heated to 105 to 110 degrees so on low heat just gonna start stirring and cooking I'm actually going to use my hand I like being able to scrape my hand over the bottom like I'm just rubbing my fingers over the bottom and making sure all the curd has come up I don't really worry about the curd like the curds being all even same sizes it's all going to get mushed together and stretched so it will work its way out you just want to be able to manage it so you don't want huge chunks of curd you can scale up with mozzarella like start with one gallon if you want or do two or do three four five the reason I don't do big ones is because when you get to the stretching part it's it's hard work it could be a little tricky to manage that much curd strength wise like just it's complicated and well and the other reason is because if it doesn't work there's kind of a lot of bad mozzarella to have to deal with and when I say bad mozzarella I mean it just gives like tough and rubbery so if you've messed up it's just not that supple um stretchy juicy lovely mozzarella it's just it's like a gross it's no good it's like tasteless rubber so I think you're starting out I highly recommend just one gallon of milk just to get get the feel for it and then scale up to two gallons and then if you're really confident three maybe four I always like to do more rather than less because if I'm going to go through all this trouble and spend all this time I might as well like make it enough that it matters I want to make like a substantial amount that we can then eat for a while I don't have to make mozzarella again because mozzarella's kind of to make it's just it's hot and it's uncomfortable and it's blah blah blah it's easy and it's fast if it works but it's not something I want to spend all my days doing heating it on low it probably takes about 10 minutes for two gallons of milk to come up to 105 or 110. these curds feel different than other cheese curds they're a little bit firmer a little bit blingier because they're being heated fast I think and because of the citric acid they just don't have that fragile feel they feel more like little lots of little rubber balls little rubbery sploo cheese I don't know what you call them blobs it's right around 108.5 109 so I'm cutting off the heat and now I'm going to set the timer for two minutes and just continue to stir it this is what the curd looks like because it's already kind of stringing it breaks though it's not stretchy but they're like big pieces like that they're a little bit like well I don't know what to say springy blingy like a little soft pliable but they feel a little not tough on the outside but just rubbery they're very different from other curds now we're at the fun part or the hard part or the hot part or the messy part whatever you want to call it but this is where we make it from curds into mozzarella these are heat proof gloves they're not really heat proof my fingers still get really hot but it's better than just the regular latex plain thin gloves there's like an added protection in here but they're not they're not great I got a set two pairs of orange and everybody knows that the orange gloves are my cheese gloves and you may not use them for anything else and what we're gonna do now is get these curds out of the pot and put them in this bowl there are two ways you could do this two ways haha I'm going to be heating this this curd in the microwave and getting it to the right temperature and then stretching it the other option is to keep the curds in the way add the salt to the way and then you heat that over the stove and just keep getting it up to like 140 550 160 degrees whatever it is until it starts to stretch and then stretching it in the way but I'm not going to do that I'm just going to do it in the microwave so this way is extra I'm gonna strain it out and that's going to go to our pigs for their breakfast or their lunch whatever meal they need to have next but I think the real way I'm cracking myself up is with doing it in the way like that's more authentic microwave is kind of cheating but if it works why is it cheating I don't know just press on this a little bit to get some of the way out you don't need to be too picky just get the excess out no point in heating it up if you don't need it so pop it into the microwave I'm gonna do it for a minute just gonna press on it a little bit more to get out more away it's getting softer on the edges but it's definitely not hot enough yet kind of gently folding it if I started working it really hard right now it would toughen it there's no point in doing it too soon and you'll notice as we go through this heating process the Whey is going to get milkier and milkier that's like the fat coming out so that's part of the reason you want to be gentle you want that fat to stay in the cheese so back in the microwave for another minute go yeah leave okay oh watch me drop this okay so here's it's changing it's getting meltier in here so you can see how it's like a smoother cheese and look oh look this is working look how much it's stretching so that's good this is oh this is beautiful beautiful beautiful I don't know if I want to press it more I think I need to start stretching it I'm going to give it another 30 seconds in the microwave and then I'm going to start stretching it oh I need to add the salt I forgot the salt I should have added the salt right before I put it into the microwave salt is optional but I'm gonna do it because I like salt tablespoon of salt per gallon that's generally the rule if you're going to heat up your whey on the stove and stir the curds in that I think it's a quarter cup of salt per gallon let's see how milky that is heat it for another minute or half minute that was 33 seconds I'm going to do another 22 because there's no point in starting to stretch it if it's not ready to stretch and going a little bit longer tends to be fine this is almost a minute look how milky that way is oh you know what I forgot I forgot ice water so this is ready for just blopping the cheese into when it's shaped you don't need to stretch it many times I think sometimes I had stretched it too much you just want it to come together and be oh this is like so it's really hot right now see how it is stretching the whole way up and it is a mess because I'm dripping way everywhere you need I don't know how many stretches three four five and it's already coming together it is not rough but it now look it's going to start tearing see that tear right there so that's the sign that it's going any maybe needs no up here on top right there so that's a sign that might need to be heated a little bit more I'm going to put it back in oh look at this see oh look a mouthful of salt we need to work this in a little bit more let's do this for another 44 seconds I need to scooch this rug back because I'm getting whey everywhere this is why mozzarella is a pain in the butt you get whey all over the countertop all over your hands it drips down on your clothes and it goes on the floor but it washes up pretty quick so you don't need to worry about too much okay that's too close to get back that's like bad you're gonna like shock my phone or something don't drop the bowl that's very important and now look come over here see how milky this way is I'm gonna strain some of that off because it's too much so that is where you're losing the cream you're losing the fat and you just don't want to get too much of that is that dirt in there let's get dirt in there that's gross honey it's not gross it's just dirt so I'm just going to do a couple quick stretches here we go yes I am to shape it you can do all kinds of fancy stuff you could braid it you can do knots you can do whatever I'm not going to do that I'm just gonna like oh it wasn't as hard we get it break it off and then I just kind of like coax it into a ball so it's like you're making a bun and you put it in here and let it set up now the other thing you can do if you want to do a cheaters way is just which I do want to do get me a square pan right a square box with a blue lid real quick out of the drawer make sure it's clean that one way from the front left front left front left left your left right there yes is it clean okay I have never had good luck with them staying in good shape they kind of like soften and just kind of turn into blobs in the fridge which is fine it doesn't matter but I don't get like artsy little balls of cheese so what I just do usually is plop it into here squish it down in and I chill it in this oops and then when I get it out of the fridge once it's totally cold it's a block of cheese and then I just slice it you can do either way this is my favorite way because it's easier here's the leftover salty brine put it there there is an enormous mess and I'm going to clean up and refrigerate these cheeses it tastes really good it's a good fat and I haven't weighed it yet maybe two and a half pounds I bet look at that this is delicious it's like rubbery not rubbery but chewy like elastic and boingy like mmm so good it tastes really buttery and it has a good flavor it's not it's not nothing it tastes good here are the two cheeses I stuck in the fridge I never took it out of the Ice Water like I should have and you can see that it's like sliming if this had been whey this would not be getting slimy and rubbery like this that is because the calcium is leaching out so you need something with calcium chloride in it or you need whey what I should have done is taken it out of the water like after 20 minutes or so but this is fine because this is just in here for a few hours and now I'm going to use this one it's all melting for the pizza this is the other cheese it got a little yellow on top because it was touching the oxygen no big deal um I could have put plastic on that if I wanted to to prevent that come on that is two pounds three ounces Plus that's three pounds three pounds of mozzarella cheese from two gallons of milk that's good that's a really good yield that's what I do is just like slice it into thirds or however much you want a little stretchy stretchy even when I backpack these I wrap them in plastic first because this is a rather wet cheese and I don't want it to get like all sucked out in the backpack or you could just package them up like this in a plastic bag double wrap them and freeze them on the lobe seal and there we go that's the mozzarella and down to the freezer it goes [Music] this is a five minute dough No kneading is my favorite pizza crust so you can find the recipe at jennifermerch.com I don't grate mozzarella cheese like this I mean I could grade it but it's just a little bit harder to degrate so I just slice it thin what I like to do when I'm doing Pizza is fine scraps of cheese as long as it's not anything too funky or weird I just add it to the pizzas ready to go into the oven looking pretty delicious gonna cook your foot okay someone's excited about her cleats [Music] Cooks privileges [Music] good as you can see our father's still too busy to hang out with us that's why we're raised our mother because her father was never alone you never know you guys eat and I just worked all day long okay shush we're gonna pray [Music]

Channel: Jennifer Murch

Views: 18,524

Keywords: Jennifer Murch, recipes, DIY, home cheesemaking, cooking, baking

Id: 8BC3mSjxYhU

Length: 18min 51sec (1131 seconds)

Published: Tue May 09 2023