A Sunday Adventure: Making Homemade Mozzarella Cheese with Alaska Range Dairy Milk
By Shaylise Sylvester
Introduction to Human Nutrition (BIO 120X) is a course at UAF where students learn about the basics of nutritional science and how nutrition can be used to achieve optimum health and well-being. I'm enrolled in the Introduction to Human Nutrition this spring, so far the course has been extremely informative and fun. One of the lab assignments in the course involves making homemade mozzarella cheese. At the beginning of the semester, I was intimidated by that particular lab listed in the syllabus. I enjoy cooking and making homemade bread. I’m also a cheese lover, but the thought of making cheese seemed difficult and skill-heavy; I also thought it required a lot of special equipment. Making homemade cheese didn't cross my mind before, as Fred Meyer had always filled my cheesy needs.
The semester progressed, and the daunting homemade mozzarella cheese lab was due. I prepared all the necessary kitchen gadgets needed: measuring cups, spoons, a large cooking pot, a kitchen thermometer, a cheesecloth, and a kitchen knife. There are only four ingredients needed to make mozzarella:
Unpasteurized milk
Citric acid
Rennet
Salt
I am a firm believer that good ingredients are essential for making good food. If I needed to make homemade cheese, I was going to find and use the best ingredients.
For cheese making the unpasteurized milk is essential. There was one source that I knew of for fresh farmed milk, and that was Alaska Range Dairy, a family-operated dairy farm located near Delta Junction. Alaska Range Dairy’s milk and products are sold in a handful of businesses in Fairbanks.
Some of the local businesses that stock Alaska Range Dairy products include:
I decided to venture down the hill to the Alaska Feed Company store since it’s close to the university. The store was stocked with the Alaska Range Dairy’s milk; they also sell other locally sourced foods like honey, eggs, yogurt, milk, and hot sauces. A wonderful thing about Alaska Range Dairy is they sell a ½ gallon of milk in glass jars. The glass jars include a $3.00 deposit, and the glass jar is available for cash back or a trade in. After I purchased the milk, it was time to learn the chemistry behind cheese making.
Milk is a combination of lactose, fats, proteins, water, and minerals. The two main proteins in milk are whey and casein. 80% of milk’s protein is casein, which is the protein that makes cheese. The casein micelles in milk are insoluble but negatively charged, so they swim around and bump into each other instead of bonding. But to make cheese, you want the casein micelles to bond.
The bonding of casein in milk is called coagulation. Coagulation can be achieved by removing the negative charge in casein micelles. This is achieved by adding acid, acid+heat, or an enzyme called rennet. When making mozzarella cheese the enzyme rennet is used. Rennet is a milk coagulation enzyme, which is originally from calf stomachs but is now more commonly mass-produced by genetic engineering. Rennet can also be made out of Mucur Miehei, a type of mold. When rennet is added to the milk, the casein micelles in the milk can bond and form protein links which creates a separation from the whey in the milk. Whey is the yellowish leftover liquid after coagulation.
pH is another vital component when it comes to making cheese because it has a strong effect on texture. A low pH cheese, like cottage cheese, feta, or goat cheese, will be crumbly. A higher pH cheese will be stringy, stretchy, and melty like mozzarella. Milk has a pH level of around 6.7 to 6.9 which is very close to neutral. When making mozzarella cheese, you want the PH level to be approximately 5.2 which is more acidic. When you add citric acid to milk, the pH levels reduce, and the calcium phosphate in the casein micelles dissolves. The calcium phosphate is then replaced by hydrogen, which helps increase the stretch of mozzarella cheese. The stretching process is important as it lengthens the casein protein links, making it stringy.
To make mozzarella cheese, I started by heating a gallon of milk over the stove to 90 degrees. I dissolved 1 ½ teaspoons of citric acid in a cup of water and added it to the pot with milk. While the milk was heating, I added the rennet to some water in a bowl. There are many rennets available that require different instructions. I found the vegetable rennet at Sunshine Health Foods and followed the directions on the bottle requiring ¼ teaspoon in 4 tablespoons of water. Once the milk temperature was 90 degrees, I took the milk off the heat, then added the rennet mixture to the pot of warm milk. I made sure to stir in the rennet for about 15 seconds, then covered the pot to let the milk sit for five minutes.
After five minutes, a large cheese curd had formed . The curd was separated and floating in whey, which is the yellow liquid in the pot. I then took the kitchen knife and sliced the cheese into sections, making sure to reach the bottom of the pot with the knife. I sliced the curd vertically and then horizontally to create cubes. After cutting the smaller cheese curds, I heated the pot until the whey and cheese cubes were 105 degrees. I mixed the cheese gently while it was heating. Once the temperature was 105 degrees, I removed the pot from the heat and let the curds sit for 30 minutes.
After about 30 minutes, I removed the cheese curds from the whey. I made sure to keep the whey liquid in the pot for the next step. I placed the cheese curds in a bowl that was covered by a cheesecloth, allowing the cheese curds to drain completely. While the cheese was draining over the cheesecloth, I began to heat the whey in the pot to 170 degrees. Once the whey reached temperature, I added the cheese curds to the hot whey. Then I began to stretch and pull the cheese with my hands. I stretched the cheese about four times, while dipping it in the hot whey for each stretch. During the stretching task, I added salt. Once I had a smooth ball shape that was uniform and shiny on the outside, the mozzarella was done.
Review: The homemade mozzarella cheese was out of this world good!
Despite how complicated making cheese at home sounded at first, I'm pleased that making cheese, especially mozzarella, is quite easy. I hope you, the reader, are inspired to make homemade cheese now. It is worth the time, the shopping ventures, and the money. Be sure to use Alaska Range Dairy milk. I promise you will be filled with joy because you made cheese that is unbelievably good.