Mozzarella Help Wanted
I am looking for a clear and hopefully "idiot proof" recipe to make mozzarella at home. I have several books on home cheesemaking and artisan cheesemaking (Ricki Carroll, Tim Smith, et al). I am a pretty decent home brewer so I understand about cleanliness and sanitation, and I am reasonably smart and can follow recipes. But so far I am 0 for 10 tries on making mozzarella at home. I got close one time but when I moved from the curd stage - which actually looked and tasted pretty good - to the stage where you stretch the curd in near boiling water to obtain the mozzarella texture, everything went to heck. I am using fresh local cows milk that is not ultra pasteurized. My wife is a microbiologist and while she helps me with my fermentation issues, she won't let me use raw milk and my back yard is too small for a cow or water buffalo. So far my efforts have yielded a lot of souply glop (and worse) which I have fed to my chicken flock but otherwise is a complete waste. My daughter lives in Philly and she can just go buy mozzarella cheese curd at her local Italian deli and then "stretch" it at home, but I have not found a similar raw mozzarella cheese curd product in the Portland (OR) area and I am way too cheap to pay to ship cheese curd from Philly to here.
Help!