What to do with whey? Lots of flavor there.

[BruceH]

First off I stumbled upon cheese making by accident. I had always though rennet was needed. Last week I was making a bechamel as a base for a cheese sauce. For some reason I thought "I'll put some buttermilk in for a little extra tang". All of you know what happened.

So I start to research what had happened and find out that I can make fresh cheese with buttermilk and milk. I'm starting to experiment, added a little brewing lactic acid today and saw some extra curds.

I'll progress at cheese making as time allows. However, a nice byproduct of whey exists. So far I've been giving it to the dogs as a treat but I'm pretty sure I can use this in cooking.

So the question is, what do you do with your whey?

 

[BruceH]

Thinking out loud here. It should work with beans. Something like a bean and pork soup. Maybe even dry beans soaked in whey?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Paging @bernardsmith

 

[BruceH]

So I had enough saved whey to soak a pound of white northern beans in. I'll cook them tomorrow and report back. I'm thinking it can't be anything but good.

 

[Gadjobrinus]

First off I stumbled upon cheese making by accident. I had always though rennet was needed. Last week I was making a bechamel as a base for a cheese sauce. For some reason I thought "I'll put some buttermilk in for a little extra tang". All of you know what happened.

So I start to research what had happened and find out that I can make fresh cheese with buttermilk and milk. I'm starting to experiment, added a little brewing lactic acid today and saw some extra curds.

I'll progress at cheese making as time allows. However, a nice byproduct of whey exists. So far I've been giving it to the dogs as a treat but I'm pretty sure I can use this in cooking.

So the question is, what do you do with your whey?

It's common to take the whey obtained after alpine, thermophilic cheese makes, and make a second round - coagulants as temp goes up, given the acid from the make. It may require a bigger drop in pH than the make itself gives, so it's not uncommon to allow the whey to ferment out further. It's then brought to near boil and the small bits that floc out are drawn away.

It's how ricotta is made, or as in France, Serac, a by-product of mountain cheesemaking. Both these are acidic, but sweeter than some other whey cheeses.

Anyway, you flocculate, cool, drain, salt - voila. One possibility.

 

[Kent88]

• Feed it to pigs to make prosciutto.
• Dry it out and use it in smoothies later on.
  
• Add it to smoothies fresh without drying it out.
• Make bread with it
• Make beer with it.
  • Probably want to make an extract or partial-extract
    
  • Styles that it could be particularly good with: If you made a cheese without any bacteria inoculation, milk stout; If you inoculated, a sour like a gose.

 

[bernardsmith]

You can ferment "on the whey" with any wine yeast (but you are using the whey as the spine of the flavor and so you will want to add honey (for a mead) or sugar or fruit) or you can ferment the whey itself with Brett. Clausseni. There is an old Scottish/Norse recipe for a drink known as blaand, versions of recipes available on the interwebs (none are authentic because most folk who refer to this drink don't really have a sense of how it was made*), but nevertheless these recipes for blaand can be quite drinkable. (think blaand as in blond/e not bland as in tasteless)
Whey, typically has an SG of about 1.020 so you might want to freeze it and collect the first runnings to double the sugar content (1.040). If you are fermenting "sweet whey" (your buttermilk if made traditionally with cultures and not edible acids), then you will need to kill the bacteria to prevent them from eating all the sugars.
As others have said, you can use whey in any dish as a substitute for stock or water and again, if your whey is "sweet" and not "acidic", you can use this as a quick starter for any lacto-fermenting pickles you might make. These are pickles whose flavors develop as the pickle ages as opposed to vinegar based pickles which simply "pickle" vegetables or fruit with the addition of acids and so which don't "age".
* For an account of blaand see F. Marian McNeill's The Scots Kitchen (first published 1929, reprinted 1983 Granada.(p285).

 

[Yooper]

I use the whey to make ricotta. Then there isn't much left after that.

 

[bernardsmith]

When I make squeaky curd there is so little ricotta available afterwards it makes me wonder if I am doing something right or doing something wrong. I assume it means that whatever technique I am using when making my curd cheese there is very little of the cassein and proteins left to form as curds for ricotta. The few times I have successfully made mozzarella I was able to make a batch of ricotta.

 

[BruceH]

So I had enough saved whey to soak a pound of white northern beans in. I'll cook them tomorrow and report back. I'm thinking it can't be anything but good.

Cooked the beans in the whey and additional water, added onion, carrots, and left over pork along with proper seasonings.

It was delicious. Looking forward to learning more about cheese making. Hop straining bags work great for this.

 

[mashpaddled]

I keep some in the freezer to make soups but recently I have been drinking it as part of my daily protein intake.

 

[passedpawn]

After a 3# cheese make, I get about 1 cup of riccotta from the whey. Maybe less. I don't think it's worth the effort.

Whey smells so dang good and buttery, I hate pouring it down the drain. I do give some to my dog, but sadly the rest is discarded.

 

[ondiferi]

I experimented the other day by letting whey evaporate (after making ricotta). I got some sort of yellow condensed milk with a palm sugar aroma and a super sour taste like pungent tamarind paste.
Interesting, but really no use to it lol.
I am looking for more experimentation ideas here. I’m thinking of reverse osmosis to recollect the water. But not enough experience with RO to think of impact on filteres and cost effectiveness.
Fermentation seems like a good idea too. Though for my particular recipe, salt is added to the milk prior to coagulation and so my whey is slightly salted. That limits possible uses by a lot.

 

[bernardsmith]

I experimented the other day by letting whey evaporate (after making ricotta). I got some sort of yellow condensed milk with a palm sugar aroma and a super sour taste like pungent tamarind paste.
Interesting, but really no use to it lol.
I am looking for more experimentation ideas here. I’m thinking of reverse osmosis to recollect the water. But not enough experience with RO to think of impact on filteres and cost effectiveness.
Fermentation seems like a good idea too. Though for my particular recipe, salt is added to the milk prior to coagulation and so my whey is slightly salted. That limits possible uses by a lot.

I personally don't know of any cheese recipes that suggest you add salt to the milk. I only ever salt the finished cheeses - hard or soft , aged or fresh. But that aside, you might freeze the whey and then collect the liquid as you allow it to gently thaw. The first 1/3 -1/2 thawed liquid should contain 100 percent of the sugars and flavors and the last 2/3 - 1/2 should be water. If you fermented the whey with bacteria then the longer the whey sits at room temperature the more lactic acids are created from the lactose and the flavors become more and more sour: think sourdough bread or sour beers.

 

[ondiferi]

I personally don't know of any cheese recipes that suggest you add salt to the milk. I only ever salt the finished cheeses - hard or soft , aged or fresh.

I believe some cheese do have salt added to milk such as Strachhino if l am not mistaken.
Anyway, I developed my own recipe after lots of A/B testing. Especially with regard to geotichum growth, which dies not like salt at all, brining or surface salt really slow down growth and increase risks of failure. Adding salt in milk prior to coagulation was a dramatically positive factor for GC.

This thawing technique is interesting. I’ll try it out.

 

[bernardsmith]

I have only made a few batches of brie like cheeses, I think these use geotrichum (I only use home made kefir to ripen my milk for all my cheeses) but while I don't recall the process in detail, I don't recall adding salt to the milk or curds. Strachhino is not a cheese I am familiar with. So, I bow to your experience and knowledge about that cheese.

 

[ondiferi]

I have only made a few batches of brie like cheeses, I think these use geotrichum (I only use home made kefir to ripen my milk for all my cheeses) but while I don't recall the process in detail, I don't recall adding salt to the milk or curds. Strachhino is not a cheese I am familiar with. So, I bow to your experience and knowledge about that cheese.

Lol. Very ceremonious.
In any case it works.

 

[DBhomebrew]

+1 on soaking beans in whey. Wife and I find that it helps keep the skins intact.

(Softer, smoother bean innards)+(Firmer, more intact skins)=eating scrumptious beans, not broken down bean paste.

 

[jkuhl]

I made farmers cheese a week ago just because I saw a video on YT and wanted to try. Kinda bland cheese, but it otherwise tastes okay. If I do it again I'll probably mix in dried herbs.

Anyways, I got nearly a gallon of whey as a byproduct. I used it as a marinade twice, mixing it with herbs and spices and marinading meat with it. The whey tenderizes meat due to the enzymes in the liquid. And I made Coq Au Vin for dinner one night and used the whey as a part of the sauce, along with a good red wine and that came out really good.

 

[ckil]

We always have a ton of whey from our weekly yogurt batch. I always save it to dump onto garden plants. My tomatos seem to love it. If it's winter I'll dump it over my berry bushes so they have some juice for spring.