Apparently I haven't done a cheese making post since the beginning of July and that one was technically supposed to be for June. So I'm slacking a bit. I am running out of easy soft cheeses to make and will have to step up my game and try something more difficult. I really would like to try making some cheeses from cream, but I can't find cream that is not ultra pasteurized. I asked at the health food store where I buy the raw milk about buying cream and they said that it is illegal to sell raw cream here in Pennsylvania unless you have a contract with the farmer and buy it straight from the farm. So for this month I am venturing into the world of aged cheeses - just a bit though.
At first I was just going to make Whole Milk Ricotta using cow's milk. I already made Goat's Milk Ricotta back in April, which used apple cider vinegar to separate the curds and whey (along with heat). The recipe for Whole Milk Ricotta with cow's milk in Ricki Carroll's Home Cheesemaking book uses citric acid and heat to separate the curds and whey. On the next page in the book, I saw the recipe for Ricotta Salata, which is a dry, salted ricotta that can be eaten sliced when it is young or grated when it is aged. The first step is to make the ricotta cheese, so that is what I am sharing this month.
Making the ricotta was very simple. The process differs a little bit from the other soft cheeses that I have made because you add the citric acid to the milk before you heat it. The recipe in the book called for one gallon of milk, but I didn't want to experiment with $8.59 worth of milk. Here is the process:
1. I poured 1/2 gallon of raw milk into a large saucepan.
2. I combined 1/2 teaspoon of citric acid with 1/8 cup of water. Once dissolved, I stirred that into the milk.
3. Using medium heat, I heated the milk until the temperature was 185 F. I stirred it frequently to prevent the milk on the bottom from scorching. You do not want the milk to boil, so as the temperature rises, keep an eye on it.
4. As soon as the curds and whey separated, I removed it from the heat. I was supposed to make sure that there wasn't any milky whey, but it was difficult to tell because the milk was really foamy - almost boiling. I think it was separated.
5. Then I let it sit for 10 minutes undisturbed.
6. While it was sitting, I lined my colander with butter muslin and set it over a bowl to catch the whey.
7. After 10 minutes, I carefully scooped out the curds and strained the whey through the colander. Looks like ricotta!
8. Then I hung it up to drain for 20 minutes.
After that, it is supposed to be ricotta cheese and you can eat it immediately. If it is too dry you can either add some whey back in or add some cream. (If you're using raw milk, before you shake the milk, you can carefully pour off a bit of cream that has separated from the milk.) It yielded the same amount of cheese as my cottage cheese recipe does, with about 1 3/4 quarts of whey left over. It seemed to have worked, but I didn't taste it because I then continued the process to turn it into ricotta salata. To be continued in 2-4 weeks...