52 Homesteading Skills in One Year: Project #13: Making homemade mozzarella cheese

Exhilarating. That’s the best word I could come up with to describe how I felt holding my first homemade ball of lopsided cheese. It wasn’t perfect but it might as well have been. I was incredibly, immensely, positively proud of myself and my homemade mozzarella cheese.

Maybe it’s because I secretly thought this was going to be a disaster or that cheese making should be left to the professionals – not wannabe amateurs like myself with a very, VERY sketchy track record of success in the kitchen. But I did it. And you can too. And you should. Because this is exciting. Really! Just look at how excited Jack is…

It’s so exciting I’ve starting envisioning our barn full of dairy cows and wondering if we could turn our garage into a second kitchen/work area where I could craft my own raw artisan cheeses.

Okay, so maybe that’s not what you have in mind, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try making your own homemade mozzarella. Imagine. In 30 minutes you could be holding your own ball of delicious cheese. You could eat it raw, grate it over pizza or just have your friends over for wine and cheese and oh so casually mention you made the mozzarella yourself. I know you want to so let’s get started.

Homemade mozzarella cheese

Step 1
Order the mozzarella and ricotta cheese making kit from Cultures For Health. I can’t recommend this enough. It contains almost everything you need as well as easy to follow directions and troubleshooting tips.

Step 2
Follow the kit’s directions to make homemade mozzarella cheese.

What? You want more details? Okay, here are the ingredients and the stove top method I used following the directions from the kit for regular pasteurized milk.

Ingredients
1 tsp cheese salt (the kit says this is optional, but I added the salt)
3 L and 3 cups cow or goat milk
1 1/4 cup cool, chlorine-free water
1 1/2 tsp citric acid
1/4 rennet tablet

Supplies
A large pot
Thermometer
Colander
Slotted spoon (not plastic)
Long knife
Rubber gloves
Large bowl of refrigerated water and a large bowl of ice water

Step 3
Dissolve 1/4 rennet tablet in 1/4 cup water. Wrap and store the remaining tablet in the freezer.

Step 4
Mix 1 1/2 teaspoons of citric acid into 1 cup of water. Stir until the citric acid is dissolved. Pour mixture into your large pot.

Step 5
Add milk to the pot. Stir vigorously with a slotted spoon while heating the milk to 90°F.

Step 6
Take pot off the burner. Slowly stir in the rennet with an up-and-down motion of the slotted spoon for approximately 30 seconds.

Step 7
Cover the pot and let sit undisturbed for 5 minutes. There should now be a clear separation between the curd (solid) and the whey (liquid). If not, let sit for a few more minutes.

Step 8
Cut the curd with a knife that reaches to the bottom of the pot.

Step 9
Put the pot back on the stove and slowly heat it to 110°F while stirring the curd with the slotted spoon.

Step 10
Take the pot off the burner and stir slowly for 2 to 5 minutes. According to the kit’s directions, more stirring will make a firmer cheese.

Step 11
Heat a pot of water to 185°F. Ladle the curds into a colander, folding them together toward the centre and draining off the whey as you go.

Step 12
Dip the colander containing the curds into the hot water a few times, then use the slotted spoon to fold the curds back into the centre of the colander until the curds reach 160 to 170°F.

Step 13
Remove the curds from the colander, add cheese salt and start stretching. It will be hot so you will probably want to use gloves. Unfortunately, I could only find one glove so yes, my other hand in the above picture is burning.

Continue to stretch the curd until it is soft and shiny. The more you work the cheese, the firmer it will be. If the curds do not stretch easily, return them to the pot and reheat them to 160 to 170°F. Try stretching them again.

Step 14
Form the cheese into one large ball or you can get fancy and braid it, make small cheese strings or whatever your imagination can come up with.

Step 15
Cool the cheese by submerging it in a bowl of  refrigerated water for 15 minutes. The directions then say to put it in a bowl of ice water, but I forgot. It didn’t seem to matter though. However, it is important to cool the cheese to keep it from becoming grainy.

And ta da…in just 30 minutes you have your own homemade mozzarella! You may now crank up the tunes and perform a little celebratory cheese dance. It’s best fresh so don’t celebrate for too long before you eat it all up…I mean share with your family.

Note: Don’t throw away the leftover whey! You can use it to make ricotta cheese. Directions are also included in the Cultures for Health mozzarella and ricotta cheese making kit. I haven’t tried it yet, but it will be my next cheese project.

52 Homesteading Skills in One Year – Project #10: Making butter

Most people would make butter on their kitchen counter. I made mine crouched on the living room floor. This is where I have been preparing most of my meals over the last few weeks because there aren’t any power outlets in our kitchen, which now looks like this……

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52 Homesteading Skills in One Year – Project #7: Homemade yogurt

Yeah, right, Kimberlee. Your 3 year old can make yogurt? I don’t believe you.

Oh yes, he can! Because I’ve scoured the globe to find the easiest – and I mean the very, very easiest – way to make homemade yogurt. Are you ready for this?

1. You pour milk in a jar and add some starter yogurt.
2. You let the milk sit on your counter until it turns to yogurt.

The end.

That’s it!!! Really, that’s all it takes to make yogurt. And you can save upwards of $700 a year by making your own.

If you’ve never made yogurt before, maybe you’re not that impressed. But the traditional way of making yogurt involves heating your milk, stirring your milk, cooling your milk… Basically, you need time and patience. If not, you end up with milk, not yogurt. Just trust me on this one.

I never had enough time or patience – until now. Now I’m back in the yogurt making business thanks to a little known yogurt starter called FILMJÖLK from Canadian culture experts – Culture Mother. They sell several varieties of yogurt cultures, which can all be made at room temperature.

If you like the taste and texture of commercial yogurts, you’ll want to try VILI, a mild tasting yogurt with a smooth texture. But, much to my family’s dismay, I decided to try FILMJÖLK, a thick, custard-like yogurt with a cheesy flavour. Because who doesn’t like cheesy yogurt? What? You don’t?

Okay, I’ll be honest. I’m the only one in our family who likes it. I’ve been using it as a vegetable dip and enjoying the occasional bowlful for breakfast topped with cinnamon and oranges. But I understand not everyone likes cottage cheese-like yogurt. In that case, go for the VILI or check out another of the yogurt starter options from Culture Mother.

The point is if your family enjoys yogurt and you have literally two seconds a week to spare, you could not only save yourself upwards of $700 a year by making your own, but you’ll also be on your way to becoming a really cool homesteader like me.  Oh, come on! I’m cool or rad or whatever the kids are saying these days.  Hmm…maybe no one cool ever said rad. Yeah, okay. So I might be more of a homesteading geek. But never mind that. Make the yogurt. Save yourself some money and do yourself proud. But first….

How much you’ll save:

Cost of Yogurt:
Approx. $1.60 to $2.33 per cup

Cost of milk:
0.44 per cup

Cost of cereal cream:
0.82 per cup

SAVINGS:
0.78 to 1.89 per cup

Our family of four goes through approximately two litres of yogurt a week. By making our own, we can save $6.24 to $15.12 a week. Over a year, that’s $324.48 to $786.24. Think of what you could do with that money. You could save up for a cow or a goat!

What are you waiting for? Let’s start making homemade yogurt.

Homemade yogurt

Ingredients
Milk, cream or for my non-dairy friends: non-milk alternatives such as coconut, soy, rice or almond milk*
Yogurt starter (Check out Canadian culture experts, Culture Mother, for several options.)

*Note: To activate your yogurt starter, you will need to use pure cow or goat’s milk. After that, you can use any alternative milk. If it doesn’t thicken enough to your liking, you can strain it.

Step 1
Follow the directions that come with your yogurt starter to activate your culture.

Step 2
Pour your milk or cream (The instructions for FILMJÖLK recommends cream over milk for a thick, Greek style yogurt. Otherwise, use milk.) into a jar and stir in 1 tbsp of yogurt starter for every cup of milk/cream.

Step 3
Cover with a cloth and let sit at room temperature until your yogurt has the consistency of custard, approximately 12 to 48  hours. It may take longer if your room temperature is cooler than 20 C.

Screw on a tight-fitting lid and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Now here is my video proof that a three year old can, in fact, make yogurt. Please note that in the video I say to let the yogurt sit on your counter for 12 to 24 hours. I should have said 12 to 48 hours.

I still can’t believe this works. It is one of those things that just seems too easy to be true. But for once, it really is this easy. And as long as you save a small portion of your pure, unflavoured yogurt to make the next batch, you can continue making homemade yogurt forever. Aren’t you excited?