Canning cheese !

[birdman6660]

ive been experiment with canning commercially made cheese ....im doing this because i simply didnt like the taste of the available canned cheeses on the market. so heres what i did .

1/ bought 10 pounds of mozzarella cheese
2/ sterilized 36 salmon canning jars, short shoulderless ones !
3/ packed the sterilized warm jars with moozzarella ( solid chunk not chopped fine) lids on finger tight ...
4/ took a hug roast pan and put 2" of water in it and put it in the BBQ
5/ covered the bottom in jars and brought it to the boil
6/ boiled it for 90 minutes until the cheese was virtually boiling inside
7/ waited till it cooled enuf to handle and removed the jars and tightened the lids
8/ set it aside and repeated the process
9/ ok ... I forgot about the last batch till it had boiled dry .. I thought I had destroyed it as it turned a light brown to amber colour , I didnt toss it
.. I let it cool off and packed it away separate from the rest ... after a week I opened one and tasted it expecting burnt taste BUT NO ..
it tasted like melted crunchy pizza cheese ... it was a huge success
10/ well then i tried it with different cheeses and it doesnt work as well but it is still cheese .... the mozzarella works best !

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[Rick]

Cheese is considered a low acid food so to ensure safety it should be canned in a pressure canner rather than just in boiling water. If you do boil it then you have to lower the pH to make to more acidic, which I would think would change the flavor. Since cheese contains live cultures I'm not sure what would happen to them by subjecting them to higher temperatures. Maybe nothing, I just don't know.

But for safety sake I'd keep the jars in the fridge. Hot bath canning will not sterilize low acid foods.

[LowKey]

Unpressurized steam canning with only 2" of water isn't recommended as a method of water bath canning either.