Buffalo mozzarella from Campania PDO is a spun paste table cheese made from whole buffalo milk; the production regulations contained in DPR (Presidential Decree) No. 28/9/1979 state that only buffalo milk may be used in the production of buffalo mozzarella.
How it is made:
Filtering of the milk
The milk used to make mozzarella, which comes from carefully selected buffalo farms, must be delivered to the dairy within 12 hours of milking and stored in containers that maintain its organoleptic features unaltered.
Before the cheese-making process can begin, the milk must be filtered to remove all impurities.
Coagulation of the buffalo milk
The buffalo milk coagulates after the addition of a natural whey starter culture, obtained by leaving the whey from the previous day to acidify spontaneously.
Coagulation is produced by adding liquid calf rennet (generally 1:10000) to the milk.
The milk is heated by the direct injection of steam (originally, by adding a proportion of boiling milk to the overall mass), to which rennet is then added (18-20 ml per quintal of milk). The optimal temperature range is 34°C - 38°C and the average duration of the coagulation process never lasts longer than half an hour.
Breaking and Maturing of the curd
The curd is usually broken up by hand, using a utensil called a ruotolo (a wooden stick at the end of which is a wooden disc with a convex outer face) or with a metal curd knife; it is pushed around until 3-6 cm caseous lumps are obtained.
There are two breaking phases: the first breaks the curd up into cubes, and the second, after a pause of about half an hour, is carried out using the ruotolo or the curd knife.
The curd is generally extracted by hand, and is then cut into thick slices using a knife or the traditional small sickle.
The curd, which is compact and is pitted with regular holes, is then left to purge on a draining table and to mature further for between 15 and 30 minutes.
After breaking, the curd is left to acidify, first in whey. This acidification process traditionally lasts about 3-4 hours, but in some cases this technological phase can often last up to 8 hours. The duration of the phase in which the curd acidifies in whey is one of the variables that have the greatest influence on the quality of the Mozzarella.
How is the decision taken to interrupt the maturation process and move on to spinning the cheese? The right degree of maturation of the curd is determined through an empirical spinning test, which works as follows: around 100g of matured paste is melted in hot water; the melted paste is placed on a stick and pulled by hand; if the paste can be stretched out into unbroken filaments of over a metre long, then it is considered ready for spinning.
Spinning
This is the stage of the process that has the greatest impact on the consistency of the finished product and on the yield.
In the traditional mozzarella-making process, the paste is still spun by hand. When the paste is sufficiently mature, it is sliced thinly, using a curd cutter, then placed in a wooden barrel, where it is melted using boiling water. Then, using the appropriate utensils – traditionally a wooden stick and a bowl – the melted paste is lifted up and stretched until a smooth, shiny mixture is obtained.
The water that is not incorporated into the paste (“white water”) is then removed from the container by collecting it in a bowl and filtering it through a fine-mesh sieve to recover any small pieces of melted paste. At the end of the spinning operation, the paste takes on the threadlike structure characteristic of varieties called spun cheeses.
Shaping the Mozzarella
Buffalo Mozzarella from Campania is traditionally shaped by hand, by two workers: one breaks off (mozza in Italian, hence the name) pieces of spun paste from a spherical mass weighing around 2-3 kg, using his thumb and index finger, supported by the other worker.
The spun cheese is then handled with great care and experience, carrying out a series of characteristic movements that conclude with the cutting-off.
A number of particular shapes, such as the traditional “plait” can be obtained only by hand, skilfully plaiting a stretched segment of the spun cheese into shape.
Salting
Salting is generally carried out by immerging the Mozzarella in saline solutions with different concentrations, typically with a salt content that varies between 10 and 18%. The duration of the operation varies from one establishment to another.
Once the paste is removed from the brine and immerged in the preserving solution, the concentration of salt in the cheese tends to balance out.
By means of a particular diffusion process, the concentration of salt is reduced in the outer layers and increased in the inner layers, tending to level out.
