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| Tommy with the board Ali made. (Ali couldn’t attend the fair.) |
We love this!
A few weeks ago we received a note from Helen Tsatsos, the proud mother of Tommy L. (10), a fifth grade Mozzarella maker. Tommy and his friend, Ali M. (10) attend the Sauganash School in Chicago, Illinois and this past semester, they took Mr. Tader’s science class.
For the end of the year Science Fair, Tommy and Ali made Mozzarella with Ricki’s 30 Minute Mozzarella Kit. They made the cheese 4 times with 4 different kinds of milk, to determine the differences. (ABSTRACT and CONCLUSION below*) They each received an A for their efforts.
We absolutely love that they did this and we hope they continue making cheese. They already understand how the percentage of milkfat effects the final product and that’s a great first step. Who knows- at this rate, by the time they reach 12th grade, maybe they will be master cheese makers!
Our science fair
project was to make mozzarella cheese. We used four different kinds of
milk to see what the differences of the cheeses would be. Our
hypothesis was that milks of higher fat levels will make different
thicker mozzarella cheese than milks of lower fat levels. The purpose
of this experiment was to determine how different fat levels in milk
will affect the thickness of cheese. We tested our hypothesis by making
mozzarella cheese with different milks. Our results proved that our
hypothesis was correct, showing that the whole milk made the thickest
cheese, and cream was too thick to even make cheese!
The experiment also
showed that the 1 and 2% milks made delicious and stretchy cheese!
Their CONCLUSION
If we make mozzarella cheeses with 1% and 2% milk, these cheeses will stretch more than the cheeses we make with whole milk or heavy cream because there is less fat in 1% and 2% milk than there is in whole milk or heavy cream.
The results of our experiments indicate that this hypothesis should be considered correct.
Because of the results of this experiment we discovered that 1% stretched more than whole, but 2% seemed to stretch more than both. Cream completely failed because it was all fat. There needs to be protein to make cheese. The first time we made cheese with 2%, it failed completely – maybe because we made it too hot. The second time we attempted to make cheese with 2%, it worked. Tommy feels it is random as to how much the cheese stretches. Ali thinks that if we were to conduct the experiment again, that 1% would stretch the most and whole milk would stretch the least.
If we were to conduct this science fair project again we would need to repeat the steps and measure and weigh & stretch the cheese again. We wouldn’t attempt to make cheese with cream again, because we know it can’t work.
(resources)
Ricki’s 30 Minute Mozzarella & Ricotta Kit
about why the heavy cream failed to produce cheese
