Cheese Making Part I: Mozzarella
January 25, 2009
Having procrastinated cheese making for a while, I got cracking on it today and have a great batch of homemade mozzarella to show for it.
I followed the recipe from Home Cheese Making for “30 minute mozzarella”. I used pasteurized (but not ultra-pasteurized) homogenized milk, almost 4 litres of it. I didn’t have any powdered citric acid so I substituted the juice of 3 lemons – which came to about 120ml or one half cup. The rennet was one I ordered from Moorlands Cheesemakers.
The Cliffs Notes for the method are:
1) Sterilize equipment
2) Mix lemon juice and and milk
3) Heat and add rennet solution
4) Heat more and then cool
5) Drain whey, knead, heat and repeat
6) Eat or store refrigerated in whey.
I found the whole process relatively straightforward. Being a cheese making virgin, I reckon I was a little too careful and overcautious at some stages but I would say you could definitely do it under the 30 minute barrier.
Other than a thermometer, there is no equipment out of the ordinary required so the only real expense is the ingredients. Disregarding the rennet (one bottle goes a long way), the only ingredients needed are milk and lemons. From the batch I made today, I would say that the juice of one lemon (or maybe less) and 1 litre of milk would produce one supermarket ball of mozzarella.
My parents are coming over for dinner on Wednesday so I hope they are looking forward to mozzarella and tomatoes to start, mozzarella-topped lasagna for main and then mozzarella ice cream for dessert. Well, two out of three ain’t bad.
Below are some photos of the process. And here are some more.
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ad no idea it was that easy, you got me thinking now!
I’m inspired!
It’s been THIS easy to make cheese all along… And here’s me eating expensive other people’s cheese like an idiot.
Damn them all. Damn them all to hell.
yep, we got to tuck into the Mozzarella last night and it was great – both raw and cooked it tasted bang on, well done!
Another good outcome is that I can now spell Mozzarella.
Amazing! I was trying to make mozzarela once, but the recipe I found sounded much more difficult and finally all I go was some nice “gummy” curd… Seems like I should try once more