End Game

I've had it.  Done.  Finished.  No more.

I absolutely can not make Mozzarella. 

I've tried.  Half a dozen times.  And only once did it even somewhat resemble the little shiny white ball of cheese.  Kind of.  A little bit.  Well, not really.

Since it's been over a year since my last mozzarella failure, I figured I'd try again.  I've been making farmers cheese (or whatever you call it) for our extra milk, but it would be nice if I could make mozzarella as we like to have pizza once a week.  You can only put so much farmer’s cheese on a pizza.  Pizza needs that stringy goodness of a mozzarella to make it, well, a pizza.

I've followed two, maybe three different ways of making mozzarella, "The easiest of cheeses to make".  Today I did the "30-minute mozzarella". 

Everything was squeaky clean.  Everything was ready and waiting to start the cheese making process.  The milk was fresh (from yesterday).  I followed the directions to the T.

And all I ended up with is a gritty bowl of cheese mush and over a gallon of whey.  How do I get gritty mush instead of that stretchy, stringy ball of cheese so cherished by all?

I've tried liquid rennet.  Rennet in tablet form.  Citric acid from two different sources.   The epic failure usually starts right at the beginning.  My curd will.  Not.  Set.  It NEVER looks like that creamy white custard hunk-o-curd in the pictures.  The best I can get is smallish curds that seem to just arbitrarily stick together until I try to cut the curd.  Then they all scatter everywhere.

I try to continue with the directions, heating up to temperature, draining the curds, heating and draining the whey, heating again, kneading and I'd say stretching, but it never gets to that stretching stage.  Is there some sort of “insiders” cheese making step I’m omitting?  Does goat milk not set as well?  Is the moon not in the correct phase? Do I have to do some sort of naked Pagan dance or something?  For gawds sakes, somebody tell me!!!!

I really, really thought we'd be making hard cheeses by now.  But if I can't even get the "easiest" cheese done right, how in the heak am I going to attempt a cheddar?

Done with the whine.  I'm going to take my frustrations out on some squash bugs now.