Author Topic: biondanonima's Whole Milk Plus Cream Ricotta Experiment  (Read 2829 times)

biondanonima

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biondanonima's Whole Milk Plus Cream Ricotta Experiment
« on: July 08, 2009, 07:30:22 PM »
Wow, I've been making a lot of ricotta lately, huh?  Anyway, the other day I had 3/4 gal of whole milk and a pint or so of cream that were nearing expiration, so I decided to add the cream to the milk and make ricotta out of the whole mess.  I didn't notice anything abnormal about the process, everything coagulated as usual, etc.  I will say that the whey looked a tiny bit cloudier than usual, but that was about it.  Anyway, the finished product tasted amazing while it was warm, but after it was fully drained and cooled, it took on an odd, pasty texture - almost like a cross between ricotta and cream cheese.  It's still okay, but not as good as the batches I've made with just whole milk.  I added additional cream to it to loosen it up a bit, but that pastiness lingers.  Anyway, now you know - whole milk is plenty fatty for ricotta!

mike_i

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Re: biondanonima's Whole Milk Plus Cream Ricotta Experiment
« Reply #1 on: July 08, 2009, 10:34:25 PM »
I did the same thing. I used 1 gallon milk and 1 pint cream. It did make a curd but it was small like small cottage cheese. When I strained it there wasn't much left. It all went down the drain. Maybe it was due to the cream being ultra pasteurized. I'll stick to just using milk.

Mike

biondanonima

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Re: biondanonima's Whole Milk Plus Cream Ricotta Experiment
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2009, 01:48:45 AM »
Interesting that your curd was so small - mine wasn't really small, it was more just that it was a solid pasty mass rather than separate curds.  I got a good yield from my batch, at least a pound.  I used ultra-pasteurized cream, too.  I had some tonight on top of sausage and peppers, and it tasted great - when it's warm, the pastiness seems to go away.  But going forward, I'm sticking to milk!

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: biondanonima's Whole Milk Plus Cream Ricotta Experiment
« Reply #3 on: July 09, 2009, 02:34:00 AM »
The  ultra-pasteurized milks and creams don't seem to work from what I have heard. Never saw the stuff here yet. Hopefully it will stay away too!

pamaples

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Re: biondanonima's Whole Milk Plus Cream Ricotta Experiment
« Reply #4 on: July 09, 2009, 03:36:59 AM »
Say Mike, about all the ricotta going down the drain...

I can't get whey to boil at 212 degrees because I am at 5000 ft so the curd is very small and delicate. The one time I used doubled up 'cheese cloth' to strain ricotta I didn't get much as it all went down the drain through the too large mesh. Since then I have purchased some dress weight cotton gauze from the fabric store and cut it into squares. It works great to strain ricotta. Mine always turns out creamy like cream cheese. It makes great canolies!

mike_i

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Re: biondanonima's Whole Milk Plus Cream Ricotta Experiment
« Reply #5 on: July 09, 2009, 05:21:18 AM »
I use a piece of linen to strain my ricotta, works great. The curd I got just wasn't worth keeping, I'll stick with plain old milk or whey to ,make ricotta.

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: biondanonima's Whole Milk Plus Cream Ricotta Experiment
« Reply #6 on: July 11, 2009, 05:28:28 AM »
If you are doing smaller batches of 1 to 3 gallons large white hankerchiefs work well also.