Jock's Good Grub: Mozzarella Cheese and How I Learned to Use Bottle Water

"Waiting tables is what you know. Making cheese is what I know. Let's stay with what we know here." - Jimmy the Cheese Man from the movie The Pope of Greenwich Village.

I really don't know much about waiting tables and I really don't know much about making cheese, although I did stay at a Holiday Inn once, but I do know how to read directions, or so I thought. A few weeks ago, when it was her turn, little sister posted our weekly family recipe for making mozzarella cheese. My first thought, what a great family recipe and I wish I'd thought of that.

Even though I lived in Wisconsin and actually been through a few cheese plants, I still didn't have a clue how to make cheese. I knew cheese came from milk and I knew the pasteurization process and I knew, somehow, whey came from the cheese making process and I knew when the whey was separated from the solids, also known as cheese curds, it was the curds that were the start of the cheese. Well, maybe I had a small clue but what I didn't know was how the whey and curds were separated and what to do with the curds afterwards.

It turns out to be a relatively simple process with some relatively tough lessons learned. To be honest, I've tried four times and failed on two of those occasions. We'll get to the lessons learned but first lets introduce the cast of characters for mozzarella cheese which is simple and few:

1/2 Rennet Tablet (Found at a local grocery store)

1-1/2 tsp Citric Acid (Found at pharmacies)

1 gallon milk (Found from contented cow)

Water (Found from a bottle)

For my first attempt at making the cheese I used the recipe that little sis posted for our weekly family recipe. Epic failure. What did I do wrong? Since the wife was helping we were both sure we had followed the directions to a tee. We made sure we didn't use ultra pasteurized milk, a warning supplied with the recipe. I wasn't alone in failure, big sis attempted and failed too. Little sis had much better success than we did and she assured us the recipe worked.

After failure, I knew of only one place for answers, the internet. Google, at times my best friend, supplied me with plenty of information but one piece of information I came across stood out, use bottled water. Could bottled water make the difference? There is only 3/4 of a cup of water required for making cheese which makes it hard to believe that could be the difference. The reason my water may not work? It's chlorinated, or at least that's the only thing I could find. That might make sense too, since little sis's water is good ole country water from a well.

A few days later it was time for another shot at cheese making, with bottled water this time. I also decided to use the recipe that came with the rennent tablets, American Mozzarella. I heated the milk up just like the instructions instructed(?) and let it sit for 2 hours. After 2 hours I looked in the pot and I couldn't tell if anything happened but after feeling down in the whey, yes it was actually whey, I found it, the cheese curd. Yippie Kay Yay success. Was it perfect? No, but I had cheese and it tasted good, definitely worth another try.

Now we fast forward to 3 months later and time to make cheese again. Simple right? Yeah right, read on.

Once again, I follow the directions, heat to 88 degrees stir in the dissolved rennant and citric acid, wait 2 hours and....................UGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! NO CURD!!!! All I could think of is "What did I do wrong?" as I was dumping the failure down the drain. For 2 days I kept thinking about it, what, what, what? Then one night, as I was watching the Nats baseball game, it hit me, like a Ryan Zimmerman homerun, whack, "ITS THE WATER STUPID!!!!" How could I be so dumb? I knew from before not to use tap water, at least our tap water, but I did anyway. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Oh well, if nothing else now we will find out once and for all if the water really does make the difference.

The weekend came and I bought another gallon of milk, at least the diary farmers are making out on the cheese making experiment. Once again, heat the milk to 88 degrees, add the dissolved rennent and citric acid in BOTTLED WATER this time and wait for 2 hours. After the 2 hour wait feel in the pot and, YES, we have curds. From here on it's clear sailing, heat back up to 108 degrees for 35 minutes, stir to keep the curd separated, and strain through a cheese cloth. The whey can be saved for later and make ricotta cheese but when I tried it I didn't think the amount of ricotta cheese I got was worth the effort.

After the curds are separated from the whey it's time to add salt and mix in thoroughly. Now the fun part, microwave and stretch, microwave and stretch. The hotter it gets, the more it can be stretched and the more it burns. Stretch until you are satisfied with the smooth consistency of the cheese. Once finished, form into a ball and store it in the frig in cool salted water for 24 hours.

There you go, as easy as opening a bottle of water, mozzarella cheese. The hardest part was finding the rennent and citric acid. Taste? I'll guarantee, nothing you buy in the store will compare to making your own and it's fresh. The possibilities are endless, this batch ended up on a prosciutto, basil and mozzarella cheese pizza cooked on the grill.