I've been trying to find a brand of milk that works fine for cheesemaking that I can simply buy from the local supermarket. So far what I got is that the milk needs:
•To be whole milk, at least 3,6% fat content
•Non uht, at most pasteurized at no more than 72c for no more than 13 seconds
•can be homogenized
And that should be it in theory.
My first try was with a local brand, their email told me that the milk was at 4% fat content and was pasteurized at 72c for around 10-23 seconds. 4 liters later and the curd was hardly setting even after adding cultures and CaCl. Took a hour and 10 minutes to set a curd plus an extra dose of rennet, useless to say it was bitter and the texture was almost like what you usually see when someone here tries to make that vinegar mozzarella recipe (photo 1)
Second try I go with another brand, bought a single bottle just to not spend too much and poured 500ml in a small pot, again, bringed to 36C, added no cultures, added CaCl diluted in non chlorinated water(diluted since my bottle calls for 1 drop per liter so I needed to split a drop in half) and the amount of rennet required(i diluted this also but I think I didn't need to do It and it may have caused problems). 25 minutes later no curd, 25 minutes more and I had something like this (photo 2) curd was cutting with neat edges but it was still a bit soft even after adding cacl (maybe the diluted renned weakened it). After heating it up to 40C and stirring a bit the curd became like (photo 3) and once clumped together they became like in (photo 4), technically curds should do this but if I'm not mistaken if pressed lightly they should just bind together and unbind back, in my case it was more like they clumped and refused to let go. So this milk is better than the first one but I fear that cutting the curd in small pieces and heating it will not produce the result needed to make most semi hard/hard cheeses I aim for.
So now I have 500ml more of the second try milk, what should be my procedure to properly test the milk and see if it produces a good curd?