I’ve been on a pretty good streak in the kitchen lately. Ever since my meltdown over uncooperative puff pastry, I’ve been making some great recipes and more importantly really enjoying myself in the kitchen. Granted what you see on this website is edited, so we don’t post recipes that sounded good on paper, but didn’t live up to expectations, or food that tastes good but I didn’t photograph well after consuming a couple of glasses of wine too many, but things overall have been going well.
Anyway, I guess the kitchen gods wanted to remind me that the kitchen can serve as a metaphor for life and that sometimes despite your best efforts and intentions, you don’t always succeed.
Last week, I was browsing through the Zingermann’s catalog and stumbled across a Mozzarella and Ricotta Cheesemaking Kit. I knew I had to have it, so I ordered it and anxiously counted down the days until I could produce loads of fresh mozzarella in the kitchen. I had dreams of feeding Carlo Caprese salads galore with all homemade ingredients: mozzarella cheese that I had made with fresh tomatoes and basil picked from our garden.
I decided that I would make my cheesemaking debut on Sunday. I opened the cheesemaking kit and everything looked pretty simple and straight forward. Plus the cartoon woman on the front of the kit looks so happy making cheese. What could go wrong especially when they make cheesemaking look so easy on their website?
Everything was in the kit that I needed aside from fresh milk that ideally would be local, organic, and more importantly not ultra pasteurized, which I found at the store. I had everything ready and started the process once again thinking about the beautiful cheese that I would produce that would grace the top of our homemade pizza that night.
The first couple of steps of heating up the milk and citric acid to 90 degrees went well and I took the mixture off the heat and poured in the rennet to turn the milk into curd. I covered the pot and waited. After 5 minutes, this is what I had, no hard curds.
I let the mixture sit a bit longer, but still no curds. I thought that perhaps the Fresh & Easy milk that I had bought was really ultra pasteurized even though it was labeled as just pasteurized. It was at this point that Carlo noticed that the citric acid bag wasn’t opened, and I realized that I had put salt in the milk mixture instead of citric acid. Relieved that my cheesemaking fail was a result of my own stupidity, I sent Carlo to the store again to get more Fresh & Easy milk convinced that take two would definitely succeed!
Take two: Even with the citric acid correctly added, I did not produce firm curds, but curdled sludge again.
After doing some more milk research, Carlo went to the store for the second time to buy some Anderson Dairy milk, which is locally produced and not ultra pasteurized.
Take three: Still no firm cheese curds.
I was totally about to give up when Carlo said that he will go to the store for the third time and pick up some Clover Farms milk which is recommended by Cheesemaking.com. I read the kit’s instruction manual for the gazillionth time trying to figure out where I was going wrong and I compared their process to the instructions listed on their website with handy photos. Of course, they don’t match and contradict each other. Awesome!
Take four: I decided to increase the temperature of my milk mixture to 100 degrees before adding the rennet in one last attempt to make cheese. I let it sit and when I opened the lid, it looked like I had some firm cheese curds at last!
Unfortunately, when I cut the cheese curds, the firm top gave way to sludge underneath. We let the mixture sit for longer and Carlo even put the bowl in the freezer in an attempt to cool the mixture down so the curds would harden.
Nothing worked and Carlo convinced me to try and make do with what we have. We scooped out the curds, which seemed like a miserably small amount considering we used a gallon of milk to make them.
I drained the curds and got ready to put them in the microwave to heat them up so I could stretch the curds and turn them into silky mozzarella. At this point, I’d been making cheese for around 5 hours and had never been so frustrated in my life as evidenced by this photo that Carlo snapped.
The stretching of the curds didn’t really work as pictured on the website, which comes as no surprise considering that this whole process felt like one disaster after another.
Anyway, I did manage to produce some cheese, even though I hesitate to call it fresh mozzarella. Instead, please let me present the Cheese Turd!
I was ready to just throw the cheese turd in the trash, but Carlo ate some and convinced me that it tasted delicious. He was just being a good husband, but while it certainly was not delicious, it was at least edible. It had a texture of dry ricotta and when you ate it, the cheese squeaked like the Cypriot cheese Halloumi.
We put the cheese on top of our pizzas, which were primarily topped with store bought mozzarella that Carlo had thoughtfully picked up on one of his many trips to the store.
The evening ended with us both laughing about my cheesemaking misadventure. What I had thought would be a pleasant experience in the kitchen turned out to be a pretty epic disaster, but I just had to put that behind me and continue on cooking and experimenting. Part of the fun of cooking is the not knowing what will happen, and you have to accept that you will have good days and then have some bad days in the kitchen. Hopefully with lots of practice, the good days become more frequent than the bad days.
I share my lesson in kitchen humility in the hopes that even if you have had a bad day in the kitchen recently, you should get back in there and give it another go! Hell, I’m already thinking about what I can do differently to make my cheesemaking successful and am thinking about trying again this Sunday. I’m figuring things can only get better after the cheese turd 
Happy cooking!
Thanks for sharing this. I know that you’ll successfully make cheese soon! There’s not a doubt in my mind.
That’s awesome. At least you tried! I’m sure the next go will be more successful.
That Zingerman’s kit is tempting, but just buy citric acid and a box of Junket brand rennet tablets at the grocery store or at http://www.junketdesserts.com. Easy cheesemaking instructions come with the box and on the website. Here’s the one I had good luck with:
AMERICAN MOZZARELLA
1/2 tablet “JUNKET” Rennet Tablet
1-1/4 teaspoon citric acid
1 gallon milk
Instructions:
1. Warm milk over gentle heat 88¬?F (31¬?C), take care not to scorch.
2. Dissolve 1-1/4 tsp. citric acid powder in 1/2 cup cool water. Add to 88¬?F milk, stir well.
3. Dissolve 1/2 tablet Junket Rennet into 1/4 cup cool water. Stir thoroughly into warmed milk mixture. Let set undisturbed for 1-2 hours, until a clean break is achieved.
4. Cut curd into 1/2 inch cubes.
5. Warm the curds and whey over low heat, stirring gently to warm evenly and keep the curds separated until temperature reaches 42¬? C (108¬?F). Hold at 42¬?C for 35 minutes, stirring every five minutes to keep curds separated and off the bottom.
6. Collect curds by pouring curds and whey through a fine cloth held in an 8 inch sieve over a 1 gallon container, let drain for 15 minutes. Save whey to make ricotta if you wish (see recipe)
7. Break up curd, mix in 1 teaspoon salt thoroughly.
8. Place 1 cup of salted curd into 2 cup measure.
9. Microwave on high for 45 seconds
10. Separate hot curd from container with the back of a fork, knead with hands to distribute heat evenly. Heat again for 20 more seconds. Stretch and fold to make smooth and elastic, shape into a soft ball.
11. Drop into cold, salted water (1/3 cup salt per quart), let sit in refrigerator for a day, store in an air tight container. Use within a week or so.
Wow, thanks Jolene! I will definitely try your recipe. After the problems that I had, your recipe seems to provide some different solutions, especially letting the curds sit for 1-2 hours! Thanks.
Oh, Alex – thank you for this. I am laughing so hard that tears are in my eyes. I don’t think I’ve told you how much I love this blog. Love, Carm
Cheesemaking is not as simple as it seems, and the quality of the recipe instructions can make all the difference in two identical recipes. Next time, in addition to using milk that is not high heat pasteurized (Farmer’s Creamery is low and slow temp pasteurization), it is critical that when you add water to your citric acid or rennet that the water be filtered or distilled. Chlorinated water greatly impacts the formation of curds. My 12 year old has been making cheese for a school project. The first time went pretty smoothly. The second time he accidentally used tap water. It was a big difference!