Ricotta Report!

The past couple of days, Charlotte has consistently milked a half-gallon every morning.  It seemed just perfect to make ricotta cheese with the milk in the fast-filling fridge.  (I had seen the ricotta cheese-making process demonstrated at a class before.  It is one of the most basic cheeses to make, so I thought I would give it a try!)

Typically ricotta cheese is made from the whey left over from making other cheeses.  However, there are numerous recipes for ricotta cheese made from whole milk.  All of the recipes I found online had a little different method.  However, I found a recipe I liked on the Hoegger Farmyard website.  You may find the link here.  I decided to make a half batch to begin with.

 I poured 4 pounds of milk into a stainless steel pan.  The recipe said to heat the milk sloooowwwwly.  I kept the heat on low, and it took over 30 minutes to heat to 190 degrees from the original refrigerator temperature!  In future batches, I will definitely keep the burner a little hotter.

While I waited for the milk to heat, I prepared the cheesecloth.  Butter muslin has a tight weave which is great for draining whey from soft cheeses.  It is 100% cotton and I plan to wash the cloth to reuse over and over.

Just to make sure the muslin was sanitary, I boiled it before pouring my cheese into it.

 Additionally during the process of waiting for the milk to heat, we made pita chips drizzled with olive oil and "herbs de provence."

 After the milk was heated to 190 degrees, I poured in 1/8 cup vinegar.  I used rice vinegar because the flavor is milder.  This is to acidify the milk and help the curds to break.

The curds are beginning to form!

I let the curds sit (off the burner) for 10 minutes.  The curds are supposed to be separated from the whey leaving "lemon-juice colored" whey and fluffy white curds.  The whey still seemed a little milky, so I added a tad more vinegar which seemed to help.

I drained the curds into a colander filled with cheese cloth.  At this point, I added a 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.  From my understanding, this is to balance out the vinegar and stop the acidification process.

The finished cheese was perfectly delightful.  

Delicious!  I made another batch right then-and-there!