The Beauty and Nuance of Whey Ricotta

[garbetsp]

I've been making cheese as a hobby for about a year now, and the one really eye opening discovery is whey ricotta. This stuff is incredible. I can't buy it in my local store and the flavor is off the chart. I've actually made batches of cheese to enjoy the ricotta of it afterward. Some of my wheels are still aging and I have no idea what they will taste like (over a year feedback loop makes it harder to correct), but ricotta is an immediate sweet reward.

I've mostly worked towards perfecting cheddar curds for most of my early batches, but tried Mozzarella and Manchego batches as well. As such there has been this noticeable variability of outcome depending on the style of primary cheese. The basic recipe I've followed is, heat the leftover whey to 195F, add 1/4 cup per gallon vinegar and let set about 15 minutes before straining. My milk source is raw milk that is an A2 monozygous herd of Jerseys, mostly pastured.

This is where I get two distinctly different ricottas. One is a rich creamy cheese that takes overnight to drain in cheese cloth and has an incredibly rich almost goat cheese like flavor (my daughter mistook it for Chevre). The other ricotta drains immediately, is drier and has some soft graininess texture to has a mild initial flavor and then a complex subtle nuanced aftertaste. Both are absolutely delicious. Both are completely different. Why?

Last night, going over my notes I noticed something. Mesophilic or Thermophilic culture completely explained the two outcomes in my efforts. I don't have enough batches to say this definitely, but it seems pretty clear.  Anyone else have a similar experience or an alternate explanation?

[DiamondDaveMg]

Bumping this topic...im interested to hear what experienced folks say. 


I've also been wondering if riccotta made with whey from a parmesan with lipase would have an off taste, due to the liapase

[jmason]

I've never had an issue with whey ricotta from a cheese that had lipase added.  I've switched to making ricotta with out usig any added acid, just whey and heat, but you must do it while the whey is still sweet, like within 2 hours of pulling the curds out. I also cheat by heating it to 150-160 to kill off the LAB so I can make ricotta the next day.

[mikekchar]

Yeah, timing is everything with whey ricotta.  It's actually trickier to get the right pH for ricotta than it is for mozzarella.  You want a pH between 5.9 and 6.1.  Lower than 5.9 and the ricotta will sink, be grainy or will not develop at all (depending on the pH).  Above 6.1 you get diminishing yields (up to and including getting basically no ricotta).  The heating of the whey over 150 to stabilise it is an awesome trick and I use that every time I make cheese now.  If you've got a really good handle on your make, you can time it so that you hit the right pH, but this is one of the times I wish I had a pH meter.  There really is no way to determine if you are in the right ballpark simply by looking at the whey as far as I can tell.

Most whey cheeses are traditionally made with the addition of up to 15% milk.  The milk gives you more yield (more fat, and some casein as well).  However, the real trick is that the calcium phosphate in the milk raises the pH of the whey.  This lets you ferment the whey a bit longer (giving you more flavour) and then rebalance the pH with the milk.

Ricotta is an art, though.  If you nail it, it can be one of the best cheeses you've ever had.  If you don't, it's pretty darn ordinary.