Buying vs Making Mozzarella; Cost and Time implications

[Mal]

Also you'd lose too much calcium in the whey if you were using just cultures. Which would not be conducive to a strong curd.

[TXCraig1]

I don't think cultures are the primary coagulating agent in a mozzarella make. Surely the aim is a mild cheese not a lactic one?

It is in that case - just another way to get there - probably preferred by folks who want everything as natural as possible.

It has nothing to do with correcting for pasteurization of the milk however. It's not a process that can be reversed. Pasteurization damages the proteins in the milk which causes the curds to be smaller; this is why pasteurized milk does not work as well as raw. UHT pasteurized milk will not work at all for cheese because the proteins are too denatured.

[Mal]

But if you look at the kit/method that Bob links to, it includes rennet. Or are we talking about something else here?
I've never heard of a culture-only mozzarella make.

[henkverhaar]

I don't think cultures are the primary coagulating agent in a mozzarella make. Surely the aim is a mild cheese not a lactic one?

As far as I remember mozzarella is made from a sour milk base. Most current (home) recipes call for citric acid - but not enough to curdle the milk (if you do that, you get an acid-curdled cheese, like a paneer) - and lactic acid could also be used, but traditionally, a bacterially-soured milk was used.

[TXCraig1]

But if you look at the kit/method that Bob links to, it includes rennet. Or are we talking about something else here?
I've never heard of a culture-only mozzarella make.

Yor're right. I guess it just replaces the citric acid.

[henkverhaar]

Also you'd lose too much calcium in the whey if you were using just cultures. Which would not be conducive to a strong curd.

Which is probably the reason that most recipes call for added calcium chloride...

[jeffereynelson]

I beg to differ - it's dead easy, almost a no-brainer. Ricotta is not really an option though, unless you liberally add milk to the whey - or you make mozz for the entire neighbourhood. Cost-wise though, it's probably not the smart thing to do; in my case, homemade mozz is about 2/3 the cost of store-bought mozz.

Wow- "dead easy, A no brainer"? I can't see how those terms could be applied to making mozzarella, unless you're trying to be insulting. It's not toast. And where do you live that milk costs like $2 a gallon?

[Ev]

Wow- "dead easy, A no brainer"? I can't see how those terms could be applied to making mozzarella, unless you're trying to be insulting. It's not toast. And where do you live that milk costs like $2 a gallon?

Actually, it's not that hard to make. Making it good?, well that might be another story. I've made decent mozz from raw milk, but not better than I can buy. Maybe I just need more practice.
 FWIW, I can buy fresh raw milk here for $2.50 a gallon.

[norma427]

I posted about going to a 30 minute mozzarella course at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10096.msg88072.html#msg88072  with making the mozzarella from raw milk.

I also made raw milk mozzarella with tdeane’s help at Reply 205 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,7561.msg84735.html#msg84735 and the following posts.

I might try to make fresh mozzarella again but my mozzarella really wasn’t as decent as I can purchase. 

Norma

[Pete-zza]

And where do you live that milk costs like $2 a gallon?

Jeff,

I think it is Holland: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,22859.msg231826.html#msg231826.

Peter

[shuboyje]

I've spent a lot of time on cheese forums in the past trying to make good mozz from scratch.  Even with my high end pH monitoring equipment from wine making consistency is still hard to come by.  If you can get it, non homogenized milk is a huge plus, path riser or not.  It you start with raw milk you will pasteurize it in the cheese making process, it is the non homogenized aspect of raw milk that is key.  You will also need to add cultures generally used in Swiss cheese production to reduce the residual sugar and help eliminate the over browning that is generally the last hurdle most home makers struggle with.

[Tscarborough]

Anything is easy...if you already know how.

[henkverhaar]

Wow- "dead easy, A no brainer"? I can't see how those terms could be applied to making mozzarella, unless you're trying to be insulting. It's not toast. And where do you live that milk costs like $2 a gallon?

Yeah, I was afraid it would come over like that after I posted it. Wasn't meant to be. But, yes, I do mean that the process of making mozzarella-type cheese from milk is easy, and can be done in a home kitchen with no special requirements other than rennet. You could substitute lemon juice for citric acid, and all the rest is standard kitchen equipment. Now I did not imply that making really great mozz is dead easy, but as said before, really great mozz is hard to find commercially also, at least over here.

And over here I pay 69 eurocents for a litre of full fat milk (not the most expensive 'brand', not the cheapest either) in one of the major supermarket chains in Holland. that translates to $3.48 per US gallon, at the current exchange rate.

Henk

[SquirrelFlight]

I'm no expert, but I can parrot what I've read.

Pasteurization isn't the problem; "ultra-pasteurization" is.  "Normal" pasteurization is a (relatively) low-temperature process that leaves most of the proteins and such intact.  Ultra-pasteurization is done at a much higher temperature which: reduces the time needed for pasteurization (meaning higher volume-processing), increases the shelf-life of the resulting milk, and denatures enough of the proteins in milk to make it virtually useless in a cheese-making context.

Most supermarket milk is labeled "ultra-pasteurized", but I don't know if it is required by law (can an ultra-pasteurized milk just be labeled "pasteurized"? I don't know).

[thezaman]

 after this thread started i got my three month health dept inspection. the first thing my inspector asked was my method for making cheese?i told her i buy it and she said your advertisements say it is house made. she went into the ohio laws on raw milk and i had to explain that i use curd from Wisconsin and i cook it in house. she wanted to know the full procedure. cooking temperatures the cooling procedure. after all was done she was happy with the method and signed off on it. i know that if it was from milk not curd i would have had a hard time getting approval.

[hotsawce]

You hit on another issue that was of concern to me. I've had similar products made with raw milk and pasturized milk, and I've almost universally preferred raw. What I gather from your post, there are suppliers that produce curd from raw milk?

Edit: Just some food for thought. I vaguely remember reading of one maker of fresh mozzarella adding fresh cream to the curds. Thoughts or theories on how this would effect the finished product, if any?

One of the biggest reasons I stopped making mozz curd from scratch is because using pasteurized milk yielded results far below the taste and fat level of mozz procured from Calabro, a company here in NE that makes fresh mozz. I could find raw milk, but the cows were Jersey and the fat content and color were the wrong type for making mozz. It was straw colored.

Larry - thanks for the insight. I am going to see if I can source grande curd and see what the cost difference is.

John

[TheDude]

I pull mozz fresh everyday in the restaurant.

In terms of cost/time...

I buy curd for 2.80 - 2.90 a pound and can produce around 20 - 25 pounds an hour.  If I were to buy from a local cheese maker it would cost me 4.65 - 4.80 a pound.

If your starting with curd, the process is not that complex.  If you are thinking of actually making it from scratch....even assuming that you have access to a quality milk base...you are introducing a lot of complexity into the pizzeria.  As an example...just research and think on yield....how much milk you will need on hand...how much space that is going to take up in the cooler...how big of a braiser your gonna need to cook it down....it's big numbers.

For us it's worth it to pull fresh daily.  It saves a little money and gives us a selling point. 

[hotsawce]

I pull mozz fresh everyday in the restaurant.

In terms of cost/time...

I buy curd for 2.80 - 2.90 a pound and can produce around 20 - 25 pounds an hour.  If I were to buy from a local cheese maker it would cost me 4.65 - 4.80 a pound.

If your starting with curd, the process is not that complex.  If you are thinking of actually making it from scratch....even assuming that you have access to a quality milk base...you are introducing a lot of complexity into the pizzeria.  As an example...just research and think on yield....how much milk you will need on hand...how much space that is going to take up in the cooler...how big of a braiser your gonna need to cook it down....it's big numbers.

For us it's worth it to pull fresh daily.  It saves a little money and gives us a selling point. 

Thanks for the input! If I did fresh mozzarella, I'd likely use a high quality curd.