It’s easier than you think to make!

Please realize that I am making this with raw milk from our milking cow, and have no experience with using pasteurized milk. The recipe says if you are using pasteurized to not use  ultra-pasteurized as it won’t react to the rennet and acid. I believe the the amount of cheese I get from the milk has to do with the fact that our milk is about 6-8% versus the 3.5-4% of whole milk bought from the store. I get 3- 3 1/2 lbs of mozzarella out of 2 gallons, but I think you’d get about 1 lb per gallon with store bought milk. Detailed recipe will be at the bottom!

We start out by adding the citric acid (diluted with water) into the slightly warmed milk. I’ve put all the photos into black and white, because the lighting in my kitchen was horrible and the photos had a bad tinge I didn’t know how to remove. I like the look of how they are, but you don’t see the real yellow of our jersey milk!

Stirring in up and down motions to fully distribute

Repeat with rennet once the milk warms up a bit more. Then this magic thing happens. Notice how the milk has gone solid, and is resisting the spoon being pushed down?

I love it. It sits for a while so the rennet and citric acid can pull more solids out of the milk. It’ll be seperated into white solids and yellow whey at this point! We scoop them up and put about a cup or so up curds into a microwave safe bowl. I’ll give an alternate way to doing it other than the microwave but so far this has worked for me as an easy and fast way to do a bunch.

Squeeze out as much of the whey as you can, pouring it back into the pot.

Microwave a minute, squeeze out more whey. Microwave 30 seconds, add salt if you want and then start stretching or folding it over on itself. It’s almost like inverted kneading.

When it starts to not want to stretch, microwave 30 seconds again, and as it starts to get near not wanting to stretch, form into a bowl and put on a plate to cool.

Beautiful beautiful being. This is a 6 oz ball. This time the recipe made 3 lbs 6 oz.

It won’t melt the way you’re used to with storebought mozza. It also won’t grate at fridge temperature, so you’ll need to freeze it for 10-20 minutes for it to firm up.

Homemade Mozzarella

1 gallon/4 litres whole milk (raw or pasteurized, NOT ultra-pasteurized)

1 1/2 tsp citric acid, dissolved in 1/4 c cool water (bought in grocery store bulk bins or pharmacy. 10X more expensive at pharmacy)

1/4 liquid rennet, 300 IMU strength. This is a strong rennet, bought here.

Heat milk on low heat to 55F. Add citric acid stirring in up and down motions. Heat milk to 88F, add rennet stirring in same way. Heat to 100F, turn off heat and move pot off heat. Allow it to sit for 5 minutes, then scoop the curds out and put them in a microwave safe bowl. You’ll want to do it in two batches. Squeeze out as much whey as you can pouring it back into the pot. Microwave one minute, squeeze out more whey. Microwave 30 seconds, and do an inverted ‘bread knead’ to work and stretch the mozza. Add salt to taste here if you want. I don’t, I like a bit of crunchy sea salt and cracked pepper scattered over the top of my pizza and in anything else, you’re probably adding salt anyways. When it gets hard to work, microwave 30 seconds and stretch until you can’t work it anymore, making your final stretches getting it into a smooth ball. Put in the fridge or freeze if not using it within a couple days. It won’t melt the same as storebought mozza and if it’s at fridge temperature, freeze for 10-20 minutes for it to firm up a bit.

What do I do with all that whey? You can make ricotta! Here is a great recipe.

You want to buy ricotta but not sure what else to do with it? I’m aiming to give you a cottage cheese tutorial soon and all you need is milk and rennet for it!

Have you ever made cheese? Wanted to make cheese? Tried someone else’s fresh cheese? Tell me about it!