Mozzarella party!

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Finally have some pictures ready of the homemade mozzarella!

Last night a few friends joined for a little cheese making party at the apartment.
3 hours, 2 gallons of whole milk and a LOT of bread/cheese/fruit snacking later...tada, we had homemade mozzarella cheese!

Turns out that TJ's whole milk is probably ultra pasteurized (despite the label). The cheaper milk from Key Foods produced much shinier prettier looking cheese.

The process is really pretty easy.
Heat a lot of whole milk, stir in some citric acid. Add more heat & rennet. Seperate the curd from the whey and microwave the curds for a bit.

When it reaches the right temp, throw on some gloves and knead and then pull.

Even though the directions say to pull it like taffy, we found that if you pulled the mozzarella apart too quickly or too much the texture got a little funny. Either way, it worked out pretty well.
See how pretty it looks all stretched out? (look---right over there--->)


After a few misfires (the mozzarella was too lumpy looking) we hit on the right strategy.
Apparently bread making is an asset, since our resident baker- Jacob- won the prize for prettiest looking mozzarella!

Here is a nice shot of all of the mozzarella from batch 2. Try and guess which piece was made by Jacob:

Oh..and the aftermath on the right: