Traditional mozzarella (clabber cultured)

• Warm milk to 32°C (90°F), or baby-bottle-warm.
  
• Add starter culture, either kefir or whey. Mix the culture in well, then cover the pot and keep warm at 32℃ for 1 hour.
  
• Add rennet, and incubate 1 hour: Measure out the appropriate amount of rennet for your milk.
• Dissolve it in 1 ⁄ 4 cup (60 mL) water, then gently mix it into your warm milk.

  Cover the pot, and keep warm for another hour.

The clean break test

• It involves sticking your finger into the curd at a 45-degree angle. You should feel a pop as your finger breaks the surface tension of the curd—it’s a rather satisfying sensation, as it tells you the curd is ready.

  Then lift your finger straight up. The curd should rise above your rising finger, then cleave cleanly in two.
  
• Check for clean break to determine if the curd is ready to proceed.
  
• Cut the curds to 2 cm (3 ⁄ 4-inch) pieces by making three series of cuts — one vertical …
  
• … another vertical but perpendicular to first cut …
  
• … and the third on an angle close to horizontal.
  
• Stir the curds lightly, and cut any large curds to size.
• Stir lightly every 5 minutes for 30 to 60 minutes. Warm up the pot slightly, if need be, to maintain a constant 32 ℃.
  
• Pitch and whey off. Once the curds have developed a poached-egg-like firmness, let them settle in the pot for 5 minutes. Pour off the whey, and reserve it all for fermenting your curds.
• Transfer the curds by hand into the cheese forms. Let the curds drain in their forms for 1 hour, until they knit together into a cheese.
  
• Ferment the cheeses in their whey: Remove the cheese from their forms, and submerge them in a potful of their leftover whey. Allow the curds to slowly ferment in the whey at room temperature.

  Keep the pot covered to keep out flies.
  
• Do a stretch test every hour: Every hour or so, submerge a small piece of curd into hot water. Wait 2 minutes, then examine its stretchiness. If the curd spins a very fine thread when stretched, it is ready for the next stage. If it does not, wait an hour, and try the stretch test again.
  
• It usually takes between 8 and 12 hours of fermentation for the curd to spin. One approach is to leave the curd to ferment overnight and finish the mozzarella the next day.

  I attempted the test for the first time after a fermentation of around 5 hours and it worked, so I proceeded with the next step.
• Prepare a hot-water bath: Heat 1 ⁄ 2 gallon (2 L) of water to a hot temperature —around 66˚C (150°F).
  
• Prepare a light salt brine by dissolving 1 ⁄ 4 cup (60 mL) of salt into 1 quart (1 L) of the whey in a bowl.
  
• Submerge the curds in the hot-water bath. Allow them to warm for 5 to 10 minutes; then, with a slotted spoon, retrieve them one at a time from the water to shape them.
  
• Stretch and roll your mozzarella balls:
  
• The hot curd will begin to become silky and plastic.
  
• Stretch and knead the curd for a brief moment, and submerge it again in the water to continue warming.
  
• Once it is thoroughly plastic, stretch the curd into a long, thin rectangle, roll it onto itself while tucking in the edges, and form the curd into a small, round shape.
  
• Stretch the tail of the curd thin and tuck the ball of cheese within to finish.
  
• Seal the mozzarella
  
• Resubmerge the mozzarella in the hot water for a minute, then cup it firmly in your hands to give the cheese its final shape.
  
• Submerge your mozzarella balls in the salty brine to cool. Eat and enjoy while still slightly warm.
  
• Preserve the mozzarella: It can be kept, submerged in its brine, in a refrigerator for up to 1 week.

  This amount of milk (4 L) produced 463 gr of mozzarella.