The Right Whey and The Wrong Whey

Cheese makers of the world, I tip my hat to you.

It's not often that I get so frustrated with a project that I step away from it and take a breather but my attempts at making mozzarella have been less than fruitful. 4 batches of grainy ricotta like curd later and I learned the difference between pasteurized and ultra-pasteurized and what it means to cheese making. On the 5th batch is when I learned how important it is to use the proper amount of citric acid and to have a controlled source.

Perhaps I should explain a little.

Cheese making is, in theory, pretty simple. A combination of acid, rennet, heat and time are utilized to make the proteins in milk form curd. Curd is coagulated milk protein (casein) that has been separated from the whey protein. Gross as that may sound, curd is fresh tasting, smooth and plenty edible. Great with fruit, preserves and sourdough. Ricotta cheese is less of a cheese and more of a loose curd made with just acid. To turn curd into mozzarella all you have to do is cook it slowly and knead it until it becomes stretch and pliable. Mozzarella, The delicious cheese many of use love and pay large amounts of money for. To turn curd into other kinds of cheese is going to take a whole series of posts to explain.

When done properly, the whole process should take about an hour to an hour and a half and result in a great final product. "Should" is the operative word there. If you want to take up cheese making you need to follow the directions very carefully. Use the amount of acid suggested, make sure to get low heat pasteurized milk (raw if you can manage it) and do your research. Why do I keep mentioning pasteurization? Remember those proteins I was talking about earlier? Well, high heat pasteurization denatures whey proteins and makes it almost impossible for the curd to set properly. If you use ultra-pasteurized milk you will end up with a decent ricotta that you wasted rennet in but if you try and cook the curd it will turn into an awful, grainy and rubbery mess.

For the most part I used to think "milk is milk". As true as that may be for cereal it's far less true for cheese.

If you are interested in cheese I suggest following this link to a great starter recipe for mozzarella. New England Cheese Making supply Company is a great site full of recipes and information including a guide to finding "good milk" or milk that will work for cheese making.

Look for updates with embedded  fanfare when I finally pull this one off.