Author Topic: Whey - Freezing For Later Use  (Read 6820 times)

lionel

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Whey - Freezing For Later Use
« on: September 16, 2009, 07:21:05 PM »
I have read that you can use good quality whey as a starter for new batches of cheese. I have got hold of 20L of whey from a hard Swiss style cheese. Planning on using some to try my own version of the Swiss cheese, any ideas on how much to use and can I freeze the remaining whey for use at a later date ???

Offline Boofer

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Re: Whey - Freezing For Later Use
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2009, 03:19:28 PM »
I too am interested/curious whether you can save leftover whey for later use by freezing it. I'm thinking that it could be poured into ice cube trays, frozen, and then vacuum-bagged. Then you could use it in soups, bread-making, etc.

Anyone doing this? If so, would there be any noticeable loss of quality?  ???

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Cheese Head

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Re: Whey - Freezing For Later Use
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2009, 06:34:30 PM »
Boofer, you'd need a lot of ice trays ;D. There is a good thread here on using Whey for non-cheese making uses, I think in there some members froze it for later food type uses.

lionel, sorry but I've never heard of using whey for next batch's meso or thermophilic starter culture. Don;t know if freezing it kills the microorganisms needed to act as a starter culture.

Offline Boofer

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Re: Whey - Freezing For Later Use
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2009, 07:44:35 PM »
CH,

Thanks for the link. Yeah, I wasn't considering saving it all. Like with the Colby I just made, I recovered two gallons of whey out of the three gallons of milk that went into the cheese. I think I'll be fine freezing several trays for later use. Several loaves of bread or pots of soup won't take too much anyway to bolster the flavor and nutrition. Come to think of it, I already freeze half "loaves" of water to assist my kefir cooldown, so I could do the same with the whey. When it's finished freezing, pop it out and vacuum-bag it. Ta-da!  ;D

I'm going to believe that the quality will be high when I go to thaw my whey chunks.

Another problem solved. Okay, what's next?

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Sailor Con Queso

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Re: Whey - Freezing For Later Use
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2009, 07:59:40 PM »
Freezing does not kill the bacteria, but you have to worry about contamination, etc.

Offline Boofer

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Re: Whey - Freezing For Later Use
« Reply #5 on: September 20, 2009, 04:25:43 AM »
Thanks, Sailor.

I won't worry about contamination for future bread or soup. For new cheese, I will continue to use fresh cultures. Better safe than sorry.

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EvilTessmacher

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Re: Whey - Freezing For Later Use
« Reply #6 on: September 17, 2017, 01:48:02 PM »
Freezing does not kill the bacteria, but you have to worry about contamination, etc.

Forgive me for necroposting, but this is the only thread I've seen specifically about freezing whey.

I'm not 100% ready to make a whey ricotta, as I don't have some of the necessary aging equipment for the pressed ricotta salata I'd like to do, so I'm either going to have to toss the whey from my next cheese (next weekend) or freeze it for the ricotta in a couple of months.

Can you please explain, as you would to a 5th grader who doesn't know what you know, exactly what you mean by "contamination"? If something is frozen, how can it get contaminated? If it's thawed under controlled conditions (i.e. a fridge) then how can it get contaminated? It's also going to be brought up to 192⁰F for the ricotta, so wouldn't that kill any beasties? I really 'fused...  ???

5ittingduck

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Re: Whey - Freezing For Later Use
« Reply #7 on: September 17, 2017, 10:20:40 PM »
Every time you freeze whey or milk, you add a couple of extra chances to get stray bugs into your product.
Pour it into a tray, cover it, sit it in the freezer, pop it frozen from the tray and rebag it....
This may not be an issue if you are heating heavily, but if you intend to culture the whey at low temperature (or make cheese from frozen milk) then the chance of contamination increases significantly.
I tried making cheese from frozen raw milk, just an experiment to see if it could be done, and rapidly realised the extra steps mean a lot more sanitising and contamination risk.

EvilTessmacher

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Re: Whey - Freezing For Later Use
« Reply #8 on: September 17, 2017, 11:09:12 PM »
Every time you freeze whey or milk, you add a couple of extra chances to get stray bugs into your product.
Pour it into a tray, cover it, sit it in the freezer, pop it frozen from the tray and rebag it....
This may not be an issue if you are heating heavily, but if you intend to culture the whey at low temperature (or make cheese from frozen milk) then the chance of contamination increases significantly.
I tried making cheese from frozen raw milk, just an experiment to see if it could be done, and rapidly realised the extra steps mean a lot more sanitising and contamination risk.

Thanks for the response, Fritz... I've bolded the bit above that I still don't get.

Only as an example, poultry products must reach 160⁰F to kill off the beasties (primarily salmonella).

So, given that most of the pathogens that are generally found near or in food products also will be killed at temperatures just slightly higher than this, how is it remotely possible that whey thawed in a refrigerator from a completely frozen state, and then heated to 192⁰F (just 20⁰F below boiling at 1Atm) will have any possibility to have any contamination, unless from a super-bacteria that can survive at near-boiling point heat? I see that you say "may not be an issue if heating heavily" which I presume means over 170⁰F. Is this the exact answer I was looking for?

In any case, making a whey ricotta by the recipe I have, does not use any bacterial cultures, and uses vinegar as a curding agent. So why would bringing up "culturing whey" be necessary? All the rest of that is what is confusing me.

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand.   :-\


Offline Fritz

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Re: Whey - Freezing For Later Use
« Reply #9 on: September 17, 2017, 11:12:56 PM »
Oops... nope wasn't me... 

Thanks for thinking about me :)

Offline Fritz

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Re: Whey - Freezing For Later Use
« Reply #10 on: September 17, 2017, 11:30:39 PM »
Ok..ok..ok.... now that I'm dragged into this....

My thoughts are: whey is a bi-product of cheesemaking .... if you make more than one cheese a week you will have plenty of whey... it's not worth mass saving or preserving... the efforts and resources required to preserve a bi-product outweighs its value... hardly worth beating it to death on a thread 10 years in the making...

Sure... you love whey... I get it...  bag it and tag it till the cows come home... it's just not common practice to mass preserve whey... if it were a farm, feed the animals with it ... fertilize your garden with it ... but how much do you really need to make bread or soup?

exposure to air and containers = potential to contamination ... keep it simple and pretend it's hamburger... same difference. Making cheese is bacterially sensitive... why take risks? Follow proven recipes for success ... leave the science experiments out of proper cheesemaking.

Making ricotta from whey needs to be done within hours of original hard cheese make ... not from frozen whey.. ewww.

I hope I didn't offend anyone.. but really....it's only whey :)

EvilTessmacher

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Re: Whey - Freezing For Later Use
« Reply #11 on: September 18, 2017, 12:23:30 AM »
Wow... did I make a boo boo...

All's good, I hope.

The reason I ask is, I have a once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity to obtain two gallons of raw cow's milk from a local farm. These opportunities only come once every 6-8 months or so. I have this great recipe from my Great Grandmother for an old Greek "farm" type cheese, similar to Havarti, Butterkase, Bel Paese, etc. and I wanted to save the whey to use it for a Ricotta Salata type cheese as well. Sort of kill two birds with one cow kind of thing. If I shouldn't make the Ricotta Salata from frozen whey, then I guess I'll have to pour it into the garden or something. What a shame to waste that goodness from milk I only can get a couple of times a year, if that much.

Offline Fritz

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Re: Whey - Freezing For Later Use
« Reply #12 on: September 18, 2017, 02:04:10 AM »
Hey Evil' ... no no, you are fine, there are no silly questions here, but the answers may not be what you were hoping to hear. Clearly you have some great ideas.. and I love that. But let's manage some expectations together here.

1)Ricotta is best made from hard cheeses. You may have trouble making ricotta from the whey of softer cheeses.
2)What are your expectations in the quantity of ricotta from whey saved from a 2 gallon make? ....I'm guessing about 1 cup. (Even assuming its from hard cheese) ....that would make a very small ricotta salata.

If I may, I would probably suggest making the ricotta from a separate batch of milk (not whey) of whole milk purchased at a creamery or store. It's pasteurization will make little difference to the ricotta salata cheese made from that milk batch.... at least you would have enough to work with compared to your scenario. Saving your raw milk for the real cheese you want to make.

I hope I'm on the right track and offered a comparable solution ... best of luck Sir !
 

Offline Gregore

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Re: Whey - Freezing For Later Use
« Reply #13 on: September 18, 2017, 02:58:34 PM »
The original thread talked about contamination when using whey for making a new cheese , the contaminants are always getting into the milk or whey at every stage , no way around this .  So using the slightly contaminated whey for the next cheeses can be an issue if you are not using it the next days make .  Freezing and thawing give the bad cultures a change to catch up to the good cultures in numbers , as they tolerate the cold stages better than the good ones .   

You are correct whey is heated to up 160 for ricotta so no worries .   You might even be able to freeze the ricotta curd and press later , though I have never tried this .


EvilTessmacher

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Re: Whey - Freezing For Later Use
« Reply #14 on: September 21, 2017, 02:52:25 AM »
Well, I have a better understanding of what's to be expected here.

Thank you.