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?