Owly055
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- Feb 28, 2014
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I made Marcellin last week, and was unable to produce any ricotta from the whey, which had been allowed to sour for 3 days before straining off the curd. I made another Marcellin the other day, and had the same luck trying to produce ricotta from the whey, but saved the whey into two growlers. A white layer developed at the bottom over the course of a day or so, so I poured the whey off.... as much as I could, then lined a funnel with a clean cotton dishtowel, and strained the remaining whey with it's layer of "white stuff". Butter muslin would not capture it, but the tightly woven dishtowel did. I had to scrape the stuff off the sides into the center regularly, but finally ended up with a small quantity of ??ricotta?? The ricotta is extremely fine grain, in fact it's about like yogurt, and has none of the typical ricotta texture. I assume that the long souring time caused this. I've never had this before.
I drained the ricotta only to the yogurt stage, and as it was time to salt the marcellin, in incorporated it right into the main body of cheese. I dumped the cheese into a large mixing bowl along with the salt and the ricotta, and went at it vigorously with a pastry cutter to mix it all up, then used a spatula to finish the job and reform it into a ball to drain for the requisite two more days.
I've contemplated reincorporating ricotta into a cheese before, but the texture of typical ricotta would not make that very practical. In this case the ricotta was extremely fine and smooth, and the marcellin will be ripened in mason jars, so this would seem the ideal cheese project to do this.
As with brewing, I tend to do things a bit loosely ;-)
H.W.
I drained the ricotta only to the yogurt stage, and as it was time to salt the marcellin, in incorporated it right into the main body of cheese. I dumped the cheese into a large mixing bowl along with the salt and the ricotta, and went at it vigorously with a pastry cutter to mix it all up, then used a spatula to finish the job and reform it into a ball to drain for the requisite two more days.
I've contemplated reincorporating ricotta into a cheese before, but the texture of typical ricotta would not make that very practical. In this case the ricotta was extremely fine and smooth, and the marcellin will be ripened in mason jars, so this would seem the ideal cheese project to do this.
As with brewing, I tend to do things a bit loosely ;-)
H.W.
