Little Green Cheese

Cheese making at home with Gavin Webber the Cheeseman

Whole Milk Ricotta

By 14 Comments

Whole Milk Ricotta is very easy to make.  However I used a recipe during my latest cheese making workshop that simply amazed me.

Normally, I find that Ricotta made with Whole milk and white vinegar is quite tasteless.  So I looked for a better recipe, which I believe I have found.  When drained this now becomes Ricotta Salata.

whole milk ricotta

The finished Ricotta is creamy, sweet and easy to make.  You only need three ingredients.  Whole milk (obviously), citric acid, and cheese salt.

Here is the method;

Easy Whole Milk Ricotta

 Yield: 4 cups or around 700 gm
Preparation Time: about 1 hour

Ingredients:

  • 4 litres (1 gallon) full cream milk
  • 2 tspns Citric Acid
  • 1 tspn Cheese Salt

Procedure:

1. Add milk to a large stainless steel pot

2.  Add 2 tspn of citric acid per 4 litres of milk (dissolved in 1 cup cool water). Add 1/2 of this Citric Acid solution to the milk (save the rest of the citric acid). Stir briskly for 5-10 seconds.

3. Add 1 tspn salt

4.  Heat the milk slowly on low to medium stirring well to prevent scorching.

5.  At 70-75°C watch for small flakes forming in the milk and the separation of small curds.  If after a few minutes you do not see the flakes forming, add more of the Citric acid until they form (do this in small 1 Tbsp increments to avoid over acid milk).  You will use less for raw milk, and more for pasteurised/homogenised milk.

6.  Continue heating to 90-93°C then turn the heat off. The thermal mass of the whey will hold at this temperature for quite some time.

7.  As the curds rise, use a perforated ladle to gently move them from the sides to the centre of the pot. These clumps of curd will begin to consolidate floating on top of the liquid.  Let the curds rest for 10-15 min.

8.  Ladle the curds gently into draining moulds lined with butter muslin (fine weave cloth). Let the curds drain for 15 min up to several hours.

For a fresh light ricotta, drain it for a short while (until the free whey drainage slows) and chill to below 10°C. For a rich, dense and buttery texture allow it to drain for an extended period of time (several hours), before chilling overnight. Move to a refrigerator. Consume within 10 days
I had to use all of the Citric Acid solution for it to work, however it was fine.
I was simply amazed at the quality of this Ricotta.  I chose to drain it for about an hour, and it formed a solid block of cheese in my Ricotta hoop which when salted and aged for a few weeks becomes Ricotta Salata.  It could even be cut into wedges and lifted, but crumbled easily with a smooth texture.  If you press this cheese with light weights for an hour or two it becomes much firmer.
I could eat it by the spoonful, but it definitely cannot stand alone.  This cheese needs to be added to recipes to get the full benefit from it.  It’s just too bland otherwise.

Mozzarella and Ricotta Workshop – October

By 1 Comment

Mozzarella and Ricotta Workshop

For any locals who may read this blog, I am teaching a cheese making workshop in October.  Details below.

 

Mozzarella and Ricotta Workshop

In this workshop you will:

  • make your own Mozzarella cheese to take home.
  • learn the techniques about the correct cultures to use, setting the curd, draining, and curd stretching.
  • demonstration of Ricotta cheese being made from whole milk.
  • Bread sticks provided for tasting cheese after completion.

Workshop length: 3 hours

Milk, cultures and ingredients provided.Price is around $50 (the centre takes a cut)

Day & Date: Saturday 27th October 2012
Time: 1:00 pm to 4:00pm
Place: Melton South Community Centre, 26 Exford Rd, Melton South, Victoria.
For bookings call 03 97478576 or email msccentr@bigpond.net.au

 

The Great Cheese Rescue

By 4 Comments

Back in the very early days of my cheese making journey, and a little less knowledgeable about the cheese making process, I attempted to use Ultra High Temperature (UHT) milk to make a hard cheese.  I thought I would try my hand at making a Wensleydale cheese infused with sage leaves in the middle.  I had just purchased a cheese press during the week before hand and I was all set to give it a try.

Cheesepress

Well that was the plan anyway.  It all started out well.  I used the UHT full cream milk which I thought was apparently okay to use in cheese making.  I added the right amount of Calcium Chloride to de-homogenise the milk (make the fat globules bigger), then added the starter culture, and waited for the prescribed 45 minutes.  So far so good.  I kept the temperature at 32°C for the entire time, and then when time was up I added the rennet and waited another 45 minutes for the curds to set.

I checked the milk and expected to see a nicely set curd, but it was not to be.  It was still milk!  That was disappointing, so I added another lot of rennet and waited another 45 minutes.  To my surprise it was still bloody milk!  No curds had set.

I thought back to the cheese making class, and I remembered that one of the ladies mentioned that if the curds doesn’t set after a second go, never throw out the milk because you can always make Ricotta Cheese out of it.

So, out with the cheese making book and off I went.  Brought the milk to 90-95°C stirring all the time to ensure that the milk didn’t burn, and then added half a cup of white vinegar.  This is meant to separate the milk into a basic curds and whey.  Guess what.  Nothing happened.

This was the most stubborn milk I had ever come across.  So in a panic, I threw in another half a cup of vinegar. It finally worked.  The whey was visible and the curds were so tiny that you could just see them.  I strained the curds and whey through cheesecloth in a colander and waited for 5 minutes.  The cheese was still very hot so I had to be careful not to burn myself.

After a bit of mucking around, I ended up with two containers full of creamy Ricotta.  I added half a teaspoon of salt to each container and stirred well.  This is what the final product ended up like.

Ricotta 001

Here is a close up.

Ricotta

This type of Ricotta is great used in Lasagna or any other pasta dish for that matter!  It tastes very nice indeed and much better than the store bought muck even when made with UHT milk.

The moral of this great cheese rescue is two fold.  Firstly, do not use UHT milk to make a hard cheese as you cannot get the rennet to coagulate, and secondly, UHT does make a nice Ricotta.You live and learn and since then I have found that fresh milk is always the best!

Little Green Workshops