Dairy Adventure: Cheese

Another one of my goals this summer was to make cheese. Mozzarella is a cheese I pretty much always have in our fridge and enjoy pretty frequently. I thought it would be interesting to learn how to make it.

Just as it was helpful when I made butter, the book Home Dairy with Ashley English was an amazing resource when making cheese. The author lists lots of different cheeses and provides step by step visuals to guide you. Mozzarella is considered an easy cheese to make at home because it doesn't require any aging. I was shocked at how easy it was.

The key with mozzarella and any cheese in general is beginning with high quality milk.
The challenge with mozzarella is the milk can't be pasteurized. Because we live in Seattle, I was able to find local, raw milk at a market near our home and used that. You can't make mozzarella with the milk you buy from the grocery store...it simply won't work. (Unless your grocery store sells raw or minimally pasteurized milk.)

You need a few special ingredients and tools to transform your milk - rennet, citric acid powder, and a thermometer. You bring your milk and citric acid to about 86 degrees, add the rennet and some water and bring that to 104 degrees. Almost instantly when I added the rennet, the milk began forming curds and whey. Then I separated the curds into a bowl, warmed them a bit in the microwave, and kneaded the cheese. After a few minutes, it was ready.

I enjoyed a sliver and put the rest in our fridge. Tonight we're having grilled pizzas with homemade mozzarella and roasted veggies. I'm looking forward to that!

I probably won't regularly make my cheese. I enjoyed learning how to do it and was pretty amazed with how the cheese turned out. The challenge is the cost. Raw milk is not cheap ($6.99 per half gallon) and the amount of mozzarella I made with a 1/2 gallon of milk was not considerable. I may make it again if the mozzarella was the highlight of the meal, but for day to day eating and enjoying, I'll stick to the great and inexpensive mozzarella I get from my trusty Costco. The taste is very similar.

I'm hoping to try homemade ricotta next. Supposedly that is very simple to make and tastes dramatically different than anything you can buy at a store. I'll let you know when and if I try it!