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I am making my first batch of Pasta Filata stretched curd trad. Mozzarella. I will be heating the whey to 180 deg. F for the stretch. After heating it to such a high heat, it is "dead" and can just be used for soups and bread recipes? Or will it still work to make other things like Whey Ricotta?

It will likely make ricotta as you are streching some (milk solids will drop to bottom of the pot) but you can try adding some vinegar to see if you can get it to yield more.

Traditional ricotta is made by heating the whey to 180° or above (hotter will give a harder / grainier result). Acid is often added to help as well, but assuming the whey has already acidified, heat is all you actually need. You've probably already made ricotta in your 180° whey, you just haven't skimmed it out.

I have really mixed results with ricotta.  Sometimes I get a wonderfully light, delicious ricotta and sometimes I get a thick slurry which is good for nothing.  I haven't figured out what I'm doing differently in each case, though :-(

Not sure if your "thick slurry" is what I am thinking of ... but if so, have you tried draining it through butter muslin? Takes quite a while to drain, but eventually leaves you with a creamy ricotta.

When I do that, I end up with a thick hard paste, rather than ricotta.  It lines the muslin and I literally have to scrape it off with a knife.  Basically, the "curd" size is very, very small.  Sometimes it's light and fluffy, though.  I'm sure it has to do with the pH and the speed with which I raise the temp, but I haven't really been able to pin it down.

Interesting. I don't make ricotta often, because we just don't tend to use it very much. But the only problem I've had is if I heat the whey too high (say, 200°F), the resulting ricotta is very grainy.

That said, it has been a LONG time since I've made any ricotta ...