Melting mozzarella

I was attempting to make mozzarella a few months back and the end product was great, creamy and delicious. The only problem was the cheese seemed to melt like ice cream. When I picked the ball up out of its whey bath it would bleed out all over my hands - I lost 10g from a 90g ball in just a few hours. I didn't see a step during which the cheese was held at 90-108F. Just wondering if the reason this was happening was because the protein cross link wasn't there. Also I do not have a sous vide supreme so I was curious if tossing a vac pac'd bag of the curd, or even a zip top bag, in a water bath would achieve the same result. Thanks so much!

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Johan_Edstrom_5586

Temperature, fat and speed tends to determine the melty factor on home made mozz, if you don't get it stretchy quick enough, or if it is too "skim" you'll have a little more curdly (is that a word?) cheese, you need to get it up to the right temp and hold it so you can stretch it out and form a ball, citric acid only vs. rennet also differs in curdling, you can actually do the heating step really well with a microwave, the holding I usually just use a thermapan and try and pay attention.

You really want that silky stretch for melty cheese

I've found these instructions really easy to follow -

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-homemade-mozzarella-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-174355

Chris_Young_80640

Additional problem is that homogenized, pastuerized milk tends to have less free-calcium that helps strengthen the protein curd and make it elastic. Adding some calcium chloride is an excellent way to overcome this problem. We recommend doing it whenever making cheese without raw milk. A typical concentration is given in our squeaky cheese curds recipe.

Matt__34377

I managed to get my hands on whole milk, but I will try adding the calcium chloride and see what happens. Thanks guys.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

Another problem I have here in CO is that it is really hard to find raw milk period, you'll also find "Organic 2% milk" but it tends to be hyper pasteurized, I've had a few milks that I thought would work turning out to be basically dead on arrival. A skim or lighter milk that is pasteurized might not curdle and set as a a solid block, you might end up with just a load of small curdles, that can still be whipped into a firm cheese, just requires that you hold it a tad longer and as @Chris indicated an addition of calcium chloride.

Sumit__65166

i have made mozzarella with citric acid and culture, and i didn't like the taste of mozzarella made with citric acid though.
however, to make mozzarella with culture it's almost a day affair but it's worth it.

i used fresh organic full fat unhomogenised milk, and it was pastureised but not ultra pastureised. i didn't use calcium chloride even thought i had it.

homogenized