Whey Ricotta 1
From SackWiki
After making hard cheese, the leftover whey can be further cooked to make fresh ricotta.
Ingredients: 2 gallons of fresh whey (less than 3 hours old) from 2% milk 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar 1/4 tsp salt 2-3 tbsp heavy cream (optional) Procedure: Heat whey at Med+1 on stove until 200F. Do not allow to boil! Add vinegar and stir thoroughly for one minute. Let sit 5 minutes. Skim foam from surface. Drain curds and whey into butter muslin, tie corners, and hang to drain 2-3 minutes. Place curd in a bowl and break it up, then stir in salt. Add cream, if desired, for a creamier consistency.
Attempt #1 - September 16, 2006
With the nearly 2 gallons of whey I had leftover from making a hard cheese, I tried making Whey Ricotta. It had a very disapointing yield (probably due to my accidental use of 2% milk), but it was better than just throwing the stuff away. The ricotta was quite tasty, although I'm not sure what to do with it. It's definitely not enough to make a lasagna. The original recipe said to optionally add 1 quart of whole milk for increased yield... But unless you need a lot of ricotta, that seems to defeat the purpose of getting the most out of the otherwise wasted whey.
Attempt #2 - September 27, 2006
This time I had a great yield and made about 1.5 cups of ricotta. I attribute the improvement over last time to the fact that my whey was from whole milk, and the source hard cheese had a slightly low yield (resulting in more fat left in the whey). I used the ricotta to make some stuffed shells and they turned out great. Yum!
