Making Mozzarella and Ricotta

The weather here has been dreadful and I haven't really felt like doing much of anything. It's gloomy, dark and rainy. Granted I'm sure that my garden is loving the rain.. I am not. Since we are all stuck inside we have had an eclectic week of homeschooling so far. We unfortunately didn't get much of our "planned" stuff done but we did learn a ton of new things and had a lot of fun to boot.

Last week I was looking around on how to make mozzarella cheese. I really wanted to have some with my farmers market tomatoes and thought whats better than attempting to make it myself? After all most things made at home taste so much better! So we headed out to our local health food market and picked up some rennet, citric acid, cheese salt and real cheese cloth. I was surprised that I didn't need more and that it was an easy thing to make! YAY! Sometimes I go on these crazy tangents and wonder what on earth I was thinking to start make it. lol

But back to my story.. While we were out I stopped by the store and picked up some whole milk from the local dairy. It took me a few days to get the nerve up to attempt to make mozzarella. Once I told the kids we would be making it there was no backing out! We dug all the supplies that we needed and set out on making us some Mozzarella and Ricotta.
The kids documented the entire process with the camera so we could share and you could attempt to make some too if you would like.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 Gallons Whole Milk
2 tsp Citric Acid
1/2 Tsp Rennet Diluted in 1/4 C. Water

Tools:
Large Pot w/ Lid that can hold all the milk
Spoon for stirring
Timer
Cheese Cloth
Thermometer
Colander
A large container to hold all the whey for use later

Directions with lots of pictures:

Pour 1 Gallon of Milk into your large pot. Add the citric acid and give it a good stir. Heat slowly to 88 Degrees, stirring occasionally

Starting to see some curds! Kids are getting super excited.

Once the milk has reached 88 degrees add the diluted rennet and give it another good stir.
Heat the milk slowly again until you reach 105 degrees. Stir occasionally.

More curds! YAY

Once the milk has reached 105 degrees turn off the heat cover and let sit for 15 minutes.

The timer has gone off and now it's time to remove the curds.

Place the curds into a bowl and squeeze as much of the whey out as you can dumping the whey back into the pot from the bowl as you go.

Once done place the squeezed curds into a colander. Mine seems to have disappeared so I used the basket from the salad spinner and placed a bowl under it.

Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge at least 2 hours.

Once the whey had cooled to under 105 degrees we got started with the ricotta. Pour in the 1/2 gallon of milk remaining into the whey.

Put real cheese cloth over your large container to hold the whey.

Heat to 105 degrees. Stir occasionally. Once the milk and whey have reached 105 degrees cover and let sit for 15 minutes.

After the timer has beeped strain the ricotta. My ice cream container was about to
over flow so I had to grab a juice pitcher!

I finished off draining in the juice pitcher. Hang to ricotta and drain for 15 minutes. I wrapped the cheese cloth around some tongs.

I got a lot of whey and will be posting soon on what you can do with all that extra whey you now have. :)

After the timer beeped I placed the ricotta into a bowl and crumbled it. I added a sprinkle of salt and a dash of milk to make it a little creamy and the salt will help preserve it a bit longer.

Ricotta is all done and ready for my salad. YUM!

While waiting for the mozzarella to finish in the fridge we watched a documentary called Between the Folds on Netflix. The kids really loved learning about origami and the different styles of origami. They then proceeded to spend the next 4 hours making things. Including an entire beach scene in a cardboard box made of origami chairs, people and palm trees. The kids forgot all about the mozzarella and I was left on my own to finish it. lol So I don't have any more pictures but the next time we make it I'll update this post with the finishing pictures.


Now that the time is up for the mozzarella in the fridge it's time to stretch and remove the remaining whey.

Place the pot you have been using in the sink and fill it with hot water. You want it to be hot but not so hot that you can't put your hands in it.

Dip the curd into the water and press it to soften in up. As you do this you will see the water turning a milky white color. That is the whey coming out of the curd. Once the water gets too milky looking dump out the water and refill the pot with hot water. Keep dipping and pressing until all of the whey is out and it's easy to stretch and keeps together.

Stretch the curd and then form into a ball.

There you have it! You are all done and now you have some yummy tasty cheese! Next on my list to try and make is yogurt!