How To Make Great Ricotta Cheese From Whey

This Instructable will show you how to make Ricotta Cheese from the Whey that was left over from the Mozzarella Cheese you already made.
Check out my Instructable for making Great Mozzarella Cheese. You will find it at:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Great-Mozzarella-Cheese/
There are tons of Mozzarella Cheese recipes on the Internet. I checked a lot of them out and perfected my own recipe and made an Instructable for it to make it as easy as possible to make Mozzarella Cheese. It seemed like a lot of the recipes I found either left out a step or didn't explain it very well.

Unlike Mozzarella, Ricotta Cheese seems to be almost 100% foolproof.
There are recipes out there to make Ricotta from milk, but this lets you get everything possible out of that gallon you used for the Mozzarella.

Things you will need:
1. Leftover Whey
2. Large bowl
3. Reusable coffee filter. You can also use a clean cloth.
4. Large Strainer that you used for the Mozzarella
5. Small bowl to put the final product in

Step 1: Heat the Whey

Pour the Whey back into your pot and heat back up to from 200 degrees to boiling. The temperature here is not critical and you don't have to do it slow. Just be VERY careful not to let it boil over. It WILL make a mess.
Some people suggest letting the Whey set out overnight. I have tried that and also started it right away and haven't noticed any difference.
Turn the heat off and let it cool down some. After a little while, if there is stuff floating on top stir it so that it sinks to the bottom. This will help later so you can just strain most of the liquid and it won't clog up the filter so fast.

Comments

[WVSundown]

DON'T THROW OUT THE WHEY!!!! You can make another yummy Norwegian cheese from the whey after making ricotta called gjetost (from cow's milk) or mysost (from goat's milk). It is buttery, cheddar-y flavor, a slight sweet/sour bite, caramel-colored cheese that I think is as good if not better than the ricotta. It is used more like a spread, can be used in sauces and soups, or to flavor veggies.

You cook it down over a several hours until it renders down to about 1/4 (or less) of the original volume, then use a stick blender or hand mixer to fluff it and make it creamy, then pour it into containers to cool. It keeps for a good while in the fridge, too. Check the 'Net for more specific recipes. All I added was about 1/4 cup of heavy cream before I started boiling it down. It is my favorite cheese!

[flammaefata]

Why did you add a 1/4 cup cream to the post-ricotta whey before you made gjetost? Can it be made without adding cream?

Thanks for the extra info on re-using the whey!

[WVSundown]

That was a couple years ago when I had access to fresh milk, but as I recall, there was something in the initial recipe about if one made ricotta after the cheese, adding a little heavy cream would make a more substantial and creamier gjetost . . . and it did!

[peacenique]

Thank you WVSundown!
So now I'm going to get a gallon of milk and make queso blanco; then from the whey I'll make this ricotta; THEN I'll use the remainder for that to make this gjetost! This cheese-making experiment is going to be fun! (and incredibly time consuming!)

[WVSundown]

Good luck with your cheeses and I hope you like the gjetost!

[jasonlough]

I'm having an extremely hard time finding milk that actually works to make any kind of cheese. I've tried 2%, vitamin D, organic, and the only one that works for me is Raw milk which is extremely expensive and therefore isn't really an option. I understand it's about the fun and "experience" but spending over $10 on a gallon of milk isn't a viable option for me. any Ideas on Brand names of milk or any other options that may help me in my new adventure?

[geosurfrider]

Well, most milk available in grocery stores has been pasteurized at temperatures over 161F and/or homogenized, which is problematic for cheesemaking because the level of heat affects calcium distribution in the milk. I live in Washington and there are quite a few co-ops where I find Jersey cow (yields more cheese) milk for relatively cheap. around $5 per gallon. You can always start a search at www.realmilk.com to find a source of local milk in your area.

For Adjustments for Pasteurized or Homogenized Milk:
You can always mix nonfat milk and heavy cream (both are usually not homogenized) together to reach the same fat content in whole milk. The ratio is 1 pint of heavy cream for each gallon of nonfat milk.

If you are using store-bought milk and find that your curds are too soft, you can add calcium chloride. To use this, dissolved the calcium chloride in nonchlorinated water and add to the milk, prior to coagulation. Chlorine can affect the functionality of certain coagulants, so its is best to stick with nonchlorinated or distilled water.

Hope this helps! Happy Cheese making!

[geosurfrider]

Well, most milk available in grocery stores has been pasteurized at temperatures over 161F and/or homogenized, which is problematic for cheesemaking because the level of heat affects calcium distribution in the milk. I live in Washington and there are quite a few co-ops where I find Jersey cow (yields more cheese) milk for relatively cheap. around $5 per gallon. You can always start a search at www.realmilk.com to find a source of local milk in your area.

For Adjustments for Pasteurized or Homogenized Milk:
You can always mix nonfat milk and heavy cream (both are usually not homogenized) together to reach the same fat content in whole milk. The ratio is 1 pint of heavy cream for each gallon of nonfat milk.

If you are using store-bought milk and find that your curds are too soft, you can add calcium chloride. To use this, dissolved the calcium chloride in nonchlorinated water and add to the milk, prior to coagulation. Chlorine can affect the functionality of certain coagulants, so its is best to stick with nonchlorinated or distilled water.

Hope this helps! Happy Cheese making!

[shyfrog7]

Jason you need to make sure the milk you are using is either not pasturized or only pasturized NOT ULTRA pasturized. It is best to use whole milk and I would recommened horizon or dairy gold if you have it locally.
You might try your hand at cream cheese to start because it is so simple and almost always gets good results here is a recipe that I have tried that works out great, I substitute cultured buttermilk for the bacteria becase it is easier to find I use about 1/4 a cup for this recipe
http://nourishedkitchen.com/how-to-make-cream-cheese/

[mdeblasi1]

I just strained what was probably 3 US gallons of Yoghurt whey.
I got an insignificant amount of cheese/
I'm thinking that I didn't boil the solution long enough, I only brought it up to a boil, then turned off the heat.
The color of the fluid draining off seemed to indicate that it still held a significant percentage of albumen. I managed to save a pint of this liquid, acidulated it and will note what happened once it has sat overnight. I don't have any great hopes, but it's worth a shot.
Thanks for the instructable.

[InfinitiGuy]

I used the leftover whey from my first cheese making experiment and it made ricotta! For the cheese cloth I found a 5 pack of Lint free flour sack towels at Walmart for $7 which worked great. Just make sure to boil them before you use them the first time.

[neffk]

I honestly don't know how you got this to work just by re-heating.

The overnight is for the natural culture (if you're doing it that way) to further sour the milk. Otherwise, you should just add some more acid.

It drains a lot faster if you carefully scoop the whey off and then spoon the curds into the filter. Pouring just makes it take a long time to drain. Maybe it'd work better if I had a small-mesk sive like you used....

A credible and compelling site on the interwebs that explains ricotta and various other cheeses you can make at home:

http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Cheese/Ricotta/RICOTTA_00.HTM

[rrkrose]

I just tried this because I had some extra whey and it din't work at all. By the end there was no cheese and 90% of the whey had evaporated. :(

[frauh]

Help! I attempted to use the leftover whey from my quark making. I heated and heated it, but it never foamed up. What's up?

[suecheese]

how do you make quark？
can you tell me the true differences between quark and cream cheese?

[salvatoreiacopelli]

OK here we go: In my restaurant, we make our own mozzarella, but from store-bought curds. We cook the curds in salted hot water until stretchable, and form our mozz. Naturally, the curds leech out some milk, and this turns the water white and somewhat 'milky.' Is this whey? And can i use this whey to make ricotta as stated above? Thanks, and btw, this is a great article!

[ezekiel88]

Are all wheys the same? Can I use whey drained from yogurt or does it needs to be from making mozzarella?

[jwystup]

I was wondering this too. I make my own "greek" strained yogurt from plain lowfat yogurt. I'm still trying to find a use for the whey. It would be great if I could make ricotta out of it!!

[frogmama]

I do the same thing as you. I use 2% milk and Fage greek yogurt as my starter. I am trying this with my last 2 batches (1 gal + 1/2 gal total - about 6 cups of whey)of whey (my second batch I didn't strain out my "leaked" yogurt.

In the past, I have added it to pancakes with good success, and like it the most in homemade blueberry muffins for my freezer. (though I can't write "blueberry-whey" on the label or my kids won't eat them. Muhaha!

[frogmama]

Ok, I made ricotta with this last batch mentioned above. I got a bit of yogurt in the whey at the end of straining and left it in (2 tablespoons?)

As far as how much ricotta I got - I didn't measure it or anything, but it came out to about 5-6 tablespoons of Ricotta. Not exactly the most efficient use of the whey, but I don't go out and BUY ricotta anyway, so it was fun to throw on our spaghetti. I watered my plants with the leftover liquid and it seems to have not done any harm. It was a fun *experiment* :)

[babelsgp]

I realize this is an old post but in VT, the left over whey from Cabot, is given to nearby farmers as fertilizer. So I imagine your plants loved it!!

[eculp]

I had the same result. I got about 1/4 cup of ricotta, which isn't much, but I'll throw it into the lasagna anyway. My mozzarella didn't turn out that great either. I'm still working on it!

[counterpoint621]

I too was wondering the same thing, but sense cheese is mainly fat, and protean you might need to add powder milk. I'll fact check my self on this, but if anyone else could shine some light on this, it would be a great help.

[Scooter Stuff]

I used about a quart of whey that was strained out of plain whole fat yogurt and got a thin layer on the coffee filter. I don't know if it was ricotta or yogurt that didn't get strained out. Never the less it was a fun experiment. Thanks for the recipe. I will use the left over whey to make the gjetost and let you know how it went.

[sturnquist1]

Ok, I've tried this and the whey seems to remain in a liquid form, meaning when I strain it it all goes down the drain. Any thoughts on what I am doing wrong? I've tried it both with and without cider vinegar and haven't had any luck. Although my mozzarella is turning out fantastic!

[beckettsfool]

This just happened to me as well. I realized shortly afterward that I had accidentally used Fat-Free milk. Maybe this happened to you as well? Perhaps this isn't the case, though, because my mozzarella turned out rather tough and rubbery, and not in the good way.

[lgourmande]

Are you saying that the whey left over after making ricotta can be boiled down to make another cheese? That's exciting!
I make ricotta, quark, fromage blanc and strained yoghurt and I have only used whey for baking bread, muffins, pancakes and crepes. I once made a blended drink with whey-dill/whey-basil combo, which twas foamy and tasted very refreshing when I drank it immediately as soon as it was blended. It did, however, become quite disgusting in the fridge later on (might be because I forgot about it till the next day).

I will get my three containers of left-over whey out of the fridge right now and get it boiling! I have all day to do it. Hate to throw out the whey, because I can't bake any more than I already do using whey, since bread or muffins only need a cup and I have about a gallon!
Let you know how it goes!

[frogmama]

I am a yogurt maker and have found a few places I like to use whey. I'm not that familiar with using Ricotta, but I am going to try this!!

I know for cooking, you can freeze whey until you are ready to use it. If yogurt whey produces a small quantity of ricotta, do you suppose that freezing the whey until you have enough to make making the ricotta worth it would affect the process? Thanks

[foodiefarmer47]

So I was given fresh goat's milk; about a pickle jar's amount and told to do this in order to make ricotta:
Heat milk until just before a boil. Add 1/4 cup vinegar and stir. Then strain (through whatever I had; I used a clean t-shirt).
I was told that the cheese I got is ricotta, and the strained liquid is whey.
Is this correct? And if so, how is it that I can use the whey to.. make... ricotta....? Please help! I have all this liquid and don't want to throw it all away! Thanks!

[cory.smith]

The cheese that would result would be cottage cheese, if you left it as is. If you strain it out, and mash the curds, you would get a cheese similar to ricotta.

The whey left over from what you describe doing would be rather useless...

[foodiefarmer47]

Thank you! That is really helpful.

[Dr. Speer]

A great use for leftover whey (if you are lucky enough to have chickens or pigs) is to use it to soak chicken scratch or pig food, then stand back and watch them go nuts over it! It is high in protein and calcium and is good for them!

[Tizy]

Hi Mike! I found your web site a while ago, and I actually right now making mozzarella! I went to Whole Foods and found unhomogenized milk and so far I am at step 11 and all looks good. I have a question about the left over whey.
Since it's getting late...can I keep it and make ricotta tomorrow?
Should I keep it in the refrigerator?
Thanks!!

[tabbique]

We sourced out local raw milk mostly to make our own butter and cheese - i'm excited to try these easy recipes.  Keep it up!

[bryandhispup]

Could I use the whey from Yogurt making to make this cheese? I love both of your posts for cheese making THANKS!!!

[mikemwa]

That's a good question. I don't really know but I think it would take a whole lot of the whey from the yogurt to get any ricotta out of it. When you make the mozzarella there ends up being almost a gallon of whey left over to use and you only get about 4-6 ounces of ricotta. If you have a good quantity of whey left from some yogurt give it a try and follow the temperatures and see what happens. Let me know.

[ivanu]

I tried making it from the whey left over from yogurt and it did not really come out. I added some acid to try to coagulate the proteins but nothing. Using milk though works very well with a little addition of acid.

[miaspamm]

I used yogurt whey and I got ricotta! It's just now very much since I only had like 3-4 cups of whey.

[mikemwa]

I put up another Instructable still somewhat keeping with the Cheese theme. It's for Quick and Simple Individual Pizzas. Check it out at:
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Make-Quick-Simple-Individual-Pizzas/

[tomlevine1]

Mike, you continue to be DA MAN!!!! This instructable is excellent, as usual. Shame on you! You've got me hooked on cheesmaking now. One extra thing: I attempted to do the coffee filter thing and it came out wet and mushy. Looking at your last image, I realize what the problem was: My coffee filter was cone-shaped. Yours is flat shaped. the cone-shaped filter caused the cheese to clump up and stopped the drainage process. By the look of the indentations in your last image, yours appears flat bottomed. If you can confirm, then that would be much more preferrable to cloth, which requires washing and boiling and sterilizing and argh! washable permanent Coffee filter is a great idea. I believe they would fit perfectly into a carafe or even a tupaware pitcher, which would fit nicely on the top shelf of any refrigerator for draining overnite. Anyway, excellent guru'ing and continued thanks to you, Mikemwa.

[mikemwa]

Thanks!!! I'm really getting into this more and more. I have a couple more in mind for the future. I really want to make String Cheese and Cheese Curds. The String Cheese should be no problem. As for the filter, I would imagine just about any reusable filter will do. You can get them in the store for a couple bucks. The thing is you have to wait until all the liquid drains. I just give it a tap or a shake every once in a while. If it does get clogged up and stop draining, just dump it back into a bowl, rinse the filter out and pour it back into the filter. Hope this helps.

[louisw]

this is a great use of resources. I am disabled so I need to stretch my dollar. Hope you do the string and curd soon. Thanks again

[xxxafterglow]

For realz. I kind of love you a lot!!! Gonna totally do this b/c cheese here (Beijing) is so expensive & I miss making pizza.

[chriself]

Wow! I never knew how much milk it took to make my two favorite cheeses. Great Instructables. I can't wait to try them both.

[cpotoso]

Truly excellent. Have you got any other recipes for other types of cheese?

[mikemwa]

I'm working on a couple more. Hopefully I'll have something up in a couple weeks or so. These things have been very popular, even way beyond my expectations. i have read and tried many Instructables over the last year or so but the Mozzarella and Ricotta were my first attempt at actually doing one. Stay tuned for more!!!!

[ZaneyMama]

Wow, that's amazing! I'll have to try that too! Does it taste sour because of the citric acid?

[mikemwa]

Actually it has a slightly sweet taste. It's very good.

[canida]

Fantastic! I can't wait to try both of your cheese Instructables.

[cheezstake]

Thank you for the long awaited second part to your cheese instructable!

[xsquid]

Great instructable!! I'll be trying this and the mozz this week. Thank you so much!

[LinuxH4x0r]

awesome! Fresh tastes so much better than the old stuff. Great job