Goats Milk Ricotta

Ricotta made from whey

 Last night we made a second cheddar, this time using lipase to create a stronger flavor.

As promised from my last post, Goat's Milk Cheddar, Our First Hard Cheese, here are some of the photos from our "weight system", The Leaning Tower of ...wait for it...Cheeza! Ha! (Please don't unsubscribe, I'll try to stop...but it's a problem I have, over use of "cheesy" puns...oh no...I did it again...)

The press with 30 pounds

Then 50 pounds

Inside the pot, every dumbbell we own

Then filled with water, about 50 pounds total

 Anyway, after we made the cheese, we had two gallons of whey (which we stupidly THREW AWAY last time). I cringe now at the thought. Especially after I read all the health benefits of using whey in cooking, feeding it to your dogs, chickens, baking bread, or...best of all...making this delicious Ricotta.

Again, the recipe comes from the Ricki Carroll book Home Cheese Making.

Super, super simple recipe, with absolutely divine results. We didn't use the "Goats Milk Ricotta" recipe because we had used all of Esther's milk for the cheddar and it calls for additional milk to be added to the whey. I wanted cream for coffee in the morning. (priorities right?) So we used the "Ricotta From Heaven" recipe, and let me tell you, it is aptly named.

To make this ricotta, we simply heated the whey until it got an opaque film on the top, about 30 to 40 minutes. Ricky Carroll calls it a "foam" but ours never really appeared that way. (Maybe we did it wrong, but it was so good, I'd do it this way again!)

Then we strained it through a cheese bag.

I salted it, thought the recipe doesn't call for salt, and we were eating it warm by the spoonful. Oh my gosh, hands down BEST ricotta I have ever had!

I kept the whey yet again, and I am planning on feeding it to the chickens. Look for a future Community Chicken's post on whey and chickens.    

More Cheese photos below.

Straining the curd

The curds

salting the curd

pouring the curds into the cheesecloth

Prepping the mold with wax paper

the cheese goes into the mold

all the way down

then the top block of the press

we use a mason jar as a spacer

unveiling the cheese to be turned and re-dressed