Making Cheese Part 2

Did you know that out of one mozzarella packet you can make 3 different cheeses?

Once you make mozzarella, you will notice you have a lot of left over whey. You know that yellowish liquid that you squeezed out of the motz and collected in the pot? Yeah, that stuff is called whey or milk serum, it's basically a by product of making cheese and in this case it can be used to make two other cheeses. Read what wiki has to say about it here.

Here's what type of cheese you can make with whey:
Ricotta
Mysost

Since I'm not a big fan a ricotta, I skipped that cheese and went straight to the mysost, but don't worry if you want to make both you can. Download directions at the bottom of this page, plus a fun video.

As for the Mysost, it's real simple., Reduce leftover whey until it forms cheese. This may take you anywhere from 4 to 10 hours depending on the amount of whey you decide to reduce. I reduced about a cup of whey (and still had 2 mason jars leftover) for approximately 6 hours. Be sure to pay close attention to your mysost in the last 30 minutes. The process accelerates rapidly at this point going from liquid whey to mysost almost instantly. This cheese can burn quickly, so beware. Mine was in fact a bit over done. I blame that on Adam and his distracting tactics.

So what is mysost you say? Mysost is a Norwegian cheese (Yay for my peeps being super resourceful and figuring out what to do with all the leftover whey). It's brown in color, sweet and salt. It's very thick and is good spread over crackers, I can attest to that. It's also known as gjetost.

I made it the easiest way, by simply boiling down whey, but you can also add cream to the whey and reduce to create a creamier mysost.

Here's some things I read before making mysost:

http://www.paprikahead.com/2012/09/mysost-caramelized-whey-cheese.html

http://dingodavedelightfullydaringdelicacies.blogspot.com/2009/05/mysost-cheese.html

http://persnicketypalate.com/2011/10/01/cultured-butter-ricotta-salata-and-mysost/

Sorry, but there's no pictures in this post. I have 2 more mason jars of whey left over. One is frozen and the other is waiting in the fridge for my next attempt at making mysost, which I promise to document in photos. I also intend on baking some bread with the whey, as it seems you can add it to almost anything as a replacement for milk or water.

I'm learning a lot here.




How to Make Cheese: Part 3

How to Make Cheese: Part 1