Homemade Mozzarella - I Will Create Food!

In my mind the image of cheese making is a long and tedious process.  I couldn't be more wrong.  In about 30 minutes we made our own fresh mozzarella and it was fun to boot!  It's a fairly easy process that requires a bit of preparation first.
First off you will need to find rennet.  Rennet is a group of enzymes that can be animal or plant based.  If you live in the Seattle area we found ours at The Cellar Homebrew on Greenwood Ave or you can order it from a variety of sources including Amazon and New England Cheese Making Supply Company.  It's pretty inexpensive and will make many batches of cheese.  

You will also need Citric Acid which you can buy at most cake decorating shops or online.

You will need:
1 gallon of milk - NOT ultra-pasteurized (it should say on the label whether it is or not)  You can use any type of milk (whole, skim, 2%) but the lower the fat content the less cheese you get in the end.
Rennet
Citric Acid
Salt (to taste)
Stainless Steel pot
Thermometer 

Begin by prepping your citric acid and rennet.  Dissolve 1 1/2 teaspoons  of citric acid into 1/2 cup cold water.  Also mix 1/4 teaspoon liquid rennet, or 1/4 tablet of rennet, into 1/4 cup of cold water.

 

Pour your milk into a large stainless steel pot and start gently heating it to 55 degrees. At 55 degrees add the citric acid and stir thoroughly.  

Continue heating the milk until it gets to 90 degrees.  At 90 degrees add the rennet, mixing in an up/down motion.  Cover and continue heating until it gets to a little over 100 degrees.  

You should see the cheese curds forming(don't over stir it as it breaks up the curds into smaller bits...we learned the hard way)  Scoop out all of the curds you can into a large microwaveable bowl

Now gently press out as much whey as possible. Once the whey is pressed out, pop it into the microwave for 1 minute.  Take it out and press some more whey out. Gently knead the cheese to get it evenly heated.  Put it back into the microwave for another 30 seconds and knead it again.  One more time at 30 seconds and kneading. 

 On this last kneading add salt to taste while kneading to evenly distribute it though the cheese.

Once the cheese has a taffy like consistency it's done.  You can braid it, cut it into strips for cheese sticks, roll it into little balls...

Which ever you decide, toss it into an ice water bath to quickly cool it off and put it into a tightly sealed container or wrap it with plastic wrap to store it.  It will last for about a week, but it probably won't be around that long.