There’s a lot of purists who will argue that the below method is absolutely not how you make ricotta – but I’m not worried because it looks like ricotta, smells like ricotta and we use it like ricotta! Ricotta means “re-cooked” because the correct way to make it is to reuse the whey from making other cheeses, add an acid, then watch as the whey curdles into what we know as ricotta. The below method works brilliantly on our boat especially when using powdered milk, and I haven’t bought ricotta since!
We use it in ricotta fritters (adding other veges, eggs, flour and spices) and occasionally turn it into a sweet treat with some boozy fruit we have. You can make cheesecakes with it, tarts, paleo breaky muffins with egg, bacon and veges – so versatile!
You will need:
1L powdered or fresh milk in a saucepan
50ml vinegar
Salt
Colander lined with cheesecloth OR your ricotta cheese hoop
Heat your milk up to 91-94 degrees Celsius or until you see just a little movement in the liquid (being careful not to boil it over).
Once the milk reaches this point, turn off the heat and pour in your vinegar.
Give the liquid 2 or 3 stirs, and then stop. You will see the milk start to curdle.
Leave the milk to separate into the curds and whey for 30-45 minutes.
Using your slotted spoon, spoon the curds into the ricotta hoop, or your cheesecloth lined colander, to drain off further whey.
Let it sit for a further 15-20 minutes, or until the whey has mostly stopped draining out. Tip out the whey from the bottom of the ricotta hoop.
Add ½ teaspoon of salt and gently fold through the ricotta, although this step isn’t necessary and is just for personal taste.
You can then take the ricotta out of the cheesecloth and store in a container in the fridge for up to a week – or simply pop your ricotta hoop into the fridge.
I must admit we don’t eat too much yogurt, but do enjoy it occasionally. I recently made some toasted muesli and we have been having yogurt and muesli for breaky instead of our usual eggs. Labneh is delicious in dips, or just by itself with some carrot sticks.
I do keep a small vial of yogurt culture in the freezer so that when I make yogurt and labneh, I can control the flavour and texture. You can use a couple of tablespoons of leftover store bought yogurt, but the more times you use it to make the next batch, the more and more different the yogurt will taste until it becomes very “different” and may end up in the bin. So for the sake of the smallest vial that is relatively cheap, I choose to use the culture. You can purchase the culture from any good home brewing shop that also caters to cheesemakers, or online.
Using powdered milk seems to result in a slightly more runny yogurt, but its fine.
I use a yogurt container that insulates the 1L jar I have (see image below). I was gifted this from my late Mum and its a circa 1970s model that works brilliantly. Other yogurt makers call for hot water to keep the yogurt warm while it incubates, and there are also electric yogurt makers that do a lot of the work for you.
Yogurt
You will need:
1L milk (fresh or powdered, homogenised or unhomogenised)
1 Pinch or 1/10th teaspoon yogurt starter culture, or 2 tablespoons of natural yogurt
2 tablespoons milk powder
Saucepan
Yogurt maker and associated container
Sterilisation tools/solution
Sterilise your yogurt container and set aside
For fresh milk: Put 1L of milk in your saucepan, and heat up to about 90-92 degrees Celsius being careful not to boil it over. This kills any unwanted bacteria in the milk that could multiply during the incubation process and make the yogurt taste gross.
Add 2 heaped tablespoons powdered milk to your yogurt maker container.
Once the milk is heated, take the saucepan off the heat and wait a few minutes before pouring it into your yogurt maker jar and stirring to dissolve the milk powder.
Monitor the temperature of the milk. Once it drops to 32 – 34 degrees celsius, add your starter culture or yogurt.
Place the lid on the jar and put it in your yogurt maker.
Depending on your taste, the yogurt is ready between 12 and 24 hours later.
The yogurt should have that lovely slightly sour yogurt smell, and be the expected creamy consistency of store bought yogurt.
Labne
I love eating labne with carrot sticks. Its moreish.
Super easy.
You will need
The yogurt you just made (see above) or 1L of store bought yogurt
Colander lined with cheesecloth
Container for storing in fridge
Pour your 1L of yogurt into the cheesecloth lined colander
Let it settle in for 5 minutes.
Gather the 4 corners of the cheese cloth and tie together in such a way that you can hang the yogurt to drain.
I use a spoon over a container, and pop this in the fridge to drain off for 24 hours or until the labne is thick and creamy to your likeness.
And thats it! Yogurt with some whey removed.
Use it as a dip, in dips, as a side to shakshuka with some dukka sprinkles, or wherever you might use a dollop of yogurt.
One of my passions on land was making cheese. I don’t think it ever really worked out to be cheaper to make my own, nor would I say that I was particularly brilliant at it and should start my own factory, but it really was the process of making the cheese that brought me so much pleasure, not to mention the positive feedback. I also enjoy being a little more self sufficient and not relying on shops for some basic cheeses.
I would spend days making cheddar, then YEARS aging it, only to find out that I had added too much culture, or had the wrong ambient temperature in those first hours of making it and therefore years later the cheese tasted bitter. I never really cracked how to get good creamy tasting brie or camembert – but my blue cheese was divine. Slightly sweet with a tanginess and creaminess that melted in the mouth. My havarti was yummo, and I did manage to make one good cheddar.
Aged cheeses require 12 degrees celsius to age in, either for the few weeks needed for blue vein, or for the months for edam and years for cheddar. A wine fridge is fantastic for keeping the temperature of the cheese to around 12 degrees celcius which is perfect for aging and mould growth on white and blue mould cheese. It could be done on a boat with a cool box that is kept at 12 degrees with some ice bricks, but given how much else there is to do on a boat, swapping ice bricks in and out of a cool box twice a day wasn’t going to be something I could commit to ongoing.
I also spent time learning how to make fresh cheeses, and when my husband and I decided that we’d put in place a goal to cruise the world, I realised that fresh cheeses were going to be my goto, so I had better practice. So while we were still living on land, I practiced making fresh cheeses and using basic implements so that when we moved onto our 30ft monohull, I could still enjoy making and eating cheese.
How did I learn initially?
A journey of a thousand cheeses starts with a single google search… I found a local(ish) cheesemaker who also had a book available, plus could sell the supplies I needed. I bought the book and some starter supplies, and that was it! I soon found that I was making most of the cheeses in the book reasonably regularly, and writing all my own notes and corrections in the margins. Eventually I began to get frustrated with some of the inconsistencies in the book, and what I was perceiving to be a bit of an amateur production, so I started doing more googling, and modified a lot of the books recipes to my own liking, and also found a new supplier for ingredients that I feel are substantially better quality. I am planning on completing some courses with this company soon to hone my skills. The recipes here are based on my original learnings, googling, my own experimentation and bringing that all together to work on a boat. I will also update things on our blog as I learn.
What do I make on the boat?
Given my love of making complex cheeses, I do make a number of more advanced fresh cheeses as well as super basic cheeses that anyone could make. On my boat I make feta, yogurt, labne, paneer, ricotta and haloumi – all with powdered milk, and all with minimal equipment and cultures. I also am keen to begin experimenting with making cream cheeses such as mascarpone and quark.
I’d also love to make mozzarella, bocconcini and burrata but I just can’t spare the amount of water required to make these cheeses. We only have 100L available in the tank, no water maker, and these cheeses require multiple litres of water to make 1 round of mozzarella.
I did attempt making some chevre using some powdered goats milk and I can unequivocally say, this was gross and I won’t be doing it again. I’d use fresh goats milk for any further experimentation, or just purchase it when I see it!
I find I never buy yogurt, feta, haloumi or ricotta ever. I make it using either fresh milk when we are in port, or when I’m feeling particularly adventurous, I make it when we are anchored up in a remote place using powdered milk, and a little calcium chloride.
Using powdered milk
We use powdered milk in our tea and coffee and honestly its fine. I think whatever technology is going on these days to make it is stopping that sickly sweet but watery flavour coming through, rather it tastes almost creamy. It will never beat unhomogenised guernsey cow milk either in taste or texture, or for cheesemaking.
It is imperative however, that calcium chloride be included in your list of supplies, if you want to make some more interesting cheeses on your boat. The calcium chloride helps with setting the rennet correctly, by adding calcium to the milk which can bind to the fat molecules and create the curds and whey that we need to make cheese. I use 1ml in 10ml cooled boiled water for a 4L saucepan of milk.
What you might need
This is a list of what I have in our boat to make fresh cheese. Most, if not all of these items are available from home brew shops that also cater to cheesemakers, or online cheese shops. This list enables me to make any fresh cheese I like.
Cultures, ingredients and cleaners etc
Yogurt culture (yogurt and labneh) – I prefer to have a small vial of culture in the freezer rather than using ¼ cup of yogurt as I can control the flavour more accurately ongoing. Reusing the yogurt over and over to make more yogurt introduces some other cultures and can result in some weird tasting stuff.
Mesophilic starter culture (for feta and quark) – again this is a small vial in the freezer
Lipase (for feta) – small vial in the freezer
Thermophilic culture (mascarpone) – small vial in freezer
Rennet (for setting milk to separate into curds and whey) – kept in the fridge
Calcium Chloride (to help when trying to set powdered milk) – small vial also in fridge
Citric acid
Iodine based steriliser that is no rinse – small vial in fridge
We intended to leave Rosslyn Bay on Wednesday, but a list of boat jobs and and an outstanding long sushi lunch with a Sav Blanc delayed our departure till Thursday. We motored over to Great Keppel throwing out the lure on the way, but all the mackerel were too busy splashing around in groups to take any interest. Most yachts were anchored on the west side of the Island after several days of easterly winds. We decided to chance the southern anchorage as winds were forecast to turn northerly. A successful choice as we secured prime real estate in calm conditions and watched all the other boats follow us over subsequent days. Here you can see this gorgeous anchorage with its sparkling clear water, white sand and our neighbours anchored up around us,
We had promised ourselves some relax time on Keppel before some of the bigger passages to the south. Bernie chased fish in the shallows for hours and covered us in sand as we tried to relax on the beach. A walk over to the resort side of the island helped us appreciate our quiet white sand anchorage as we were greeted by ‘tourist busy-ness’: jet skis, sunburned tourists and live music.
Amusingly as we walked back to our anchorage from the resort side, we saw a sign that said the eastern end of Long Beach was a nudist beach. We never knew, nor ever saw, nor gave uncladding a go. We just enjoyed the few days of swimming and walking and soaking up the sun and seawater.
On the way north we had missed “The Narrows”, a shallow section of water between Curtis Island and the coast, by staying offshore amongst the coral islands of Lady Musgrave and Fitzroy Reef (you can check that out here – https://fiandadriansailing.com/losing-sight-of-land/). The Narrows are 2.1m above the water level at low tide where a cattle press, aptly named “The Cattle Crossing” (pictured here with the starboard marker), goes between the island and mainland for farmers to safely get their cattle to the different grazing areas. But with tides of up to 5m high, yachts can traverse The Narrows, although poor timing can be embarrassing. Our calculations suggested leaving Keppel at 4:30am would give us ample time to arrive at the shallow area an hour before high tide. At this time of year its light at 4:30am with a distinct absence of daylight saving in Queensland.
After tea and coffee at 4am I was about to announce we were the first boat to leave the anchorage when I spotted the all too familiar navigation lights slipping silently out of the anchorage ahead of us. One day we will be first to leave…
It was a straight line to the start of Curtis Island and The Narrows with only a few shoals to avoid. All the other yachts leaving the anchorage behind us headed out to sea and down the coastal route – did they know something we didn’t? By the time we entered The Narrows the tide was helping us along and we clocked our speed at over 9 knots which is a record for us!
The shallowest part of The Narrows looks like a wide open river, but there is only a very narrow path that is deep enough for Addictive. Using the electronic charts, guidebooks and plenty of buttock clenching we kept to the deepest line and were soon passed the lowest point which was 1m below the keel. As the river deepened again we hoisted a sail and meandered to our chosen anchorage, an empty creek mouth with an abandoned hut and just enough depth at low tide.
Our cruising guide spoke of mango trees around the abandoned hut. Approaching at low tide it was quickly apparent that 50m of shoe sucking mud was not passable. A second attempt via a rocky beach was successful. To our dismay the mangos were small and not nearly ripe, but the water tanks around the hut allowed us to fill our shower bags and wash our hair.
We might have stayed longer but there was only one day of northerly winds to get to Pancake Creek where we would sit out the forecasted southerly blow. The high tide was at 10 am the next day which was a much more civilised start time than the previous day. There was time to recover the (empty) crab traps, put away the dinghy and re-fill the showers before heading downstream to Gladstone. As we passed through the big scary port full of big scary ships and big scary sounding radio calls, the tide and wind whisked us along towards open ocean. It would be here again we would beat our speed record set the previous day, clocking 9.6 knots!
The radio announced an incoming monster, confirmed by a team of tugs lining the shipping channel ahead of us. We were sailing just outside the channel to avoid any overly scary situations. As luck would have it, we would meet this behemoth ship at a pinch point, where shallow water on our port side forced us close towards the shipping channel on our starboard. Fearing a far too close encounter that we were never destined to win, we tacked and retraced our track until the channel was clear again. Hoisting more sail we scuttled out of the shipping channels as fast as we could as the next arrival appeared over the horizon.
Once clear of the shipping channels we had a beam reach in bouncy conditions along the coast. The boat loves these conditions more than we do, speeding along at 7 knots. It takes a little time to replace all the dislodged items downstairs and re-assure Bernie after these trips. The guide books describe Pancake Creek as a deep all weather entrance, however we were rightly concerned about arriving just after low tide. We saw 30 cm under the keel at one point. We weren’t surprised to see the larger yacht following us come to a grinding halt, back off the sandbank it had hit and then anchor at the creek entrance rather than try to follow us in.
We will be here for a few days now until winds turn north again for the long jump to Bundaberg.
We had avoided the ‘hustle and bustle’ of Airlie Beach on the way up, choosing instead to anchor at the quiet wilderness bays just north. Airlie is the main Whitsunday hub full of tourists, backpackers and tour operators. Having spent a few days there, to our surprise, Airlie soon became our new favourite marina. The best marina facilities on the east coast, good coffee, and lively dog friendly restaurants quickly won us over. Throw in the Airlie markets, shops and ‘lagoon’ beach front pool recreation area, and we were sold on the place. After 5 nights we headed to the fuel dock on the way out: Addictive on one side of the fuel dock getting our 35 litres of diesel and 3.5 litres of unleaded and the f**k off massive motor cruiser on the other side with top deck looking down on our mast and requiring a bank guarantee to fill up with the high-flo diesel…that’s the Whitsundays.
Leaving Airlie, we avoided the most crowded bare boat charter areas such as Nara Inlet and CID Harbour, and headed south to Lindeman Island. Lindeman Island is part of the bare boat charter area, however oftentimes, on a weeks charter, people find it a little too far to go when there is a plethora of amazing places within only an hour or two. So we were banking on a quiet anchorage.
Once past Hamilton there were only a couple of sail boats in the distance and light sailing winds. Now that we are heading south we are looking for northerly winds and anchorages on the south side of the islands. Lindeman has a sheltered anchorage with an almost perfect beach, close to the mothballed resort. We visited the resort which looks functional from a distance but close up the degradation is obvious. There is evidence of rebuilding with work on the pier underway.
On a windy afternoon we dinghyed around to the next beach which was sheltered and empty. Bernie practised his shallow water fishing and we couldn’t resist a quick skinny dip.
After a few nights at Lindeman we decided to do a short hop South. We had stopped in at the north side of Thomas Island on the way up and loved it, and the cruising guide recommended one of the southern anchorages for protection from the north winds, describing it as having “a truly ‘South Pacific’ atmosphere” (Colfelt 2016, “100 Magic Miles”). This was absolutely true and we had a lovely time on the beach in this special place.
We have learned that wind and tide in the same direction means fast flat passages whereas the opposite is good for washing clothes. Leaving Thomas early after 2 nights, we had tide with us and quickly arrived at Goldsmith Island which looked a suspiciously rolly anchorage so we continued on to Brampton, for our second visit there. This time we were on the south east of the island away from the resort. We stayed 3 nights watching the cruising boats come and go as they headed south away from the cyclone season. A trimaran anchored over night and much to our surprise had a springer spaniel on board.
At high tide the lagoon near where we were anchored filled with water providing a beautiful calm swimming area. Each day mackerel herded the bait fish around our boat for a feed. We managed to hook a couple but they both escaped before we got them on board.
Eventually, we found some good weather, and enough motivation to leave beautiful Brampton Island for another spot further south. Keswick Island was only a couple of hours away and looked to be a good jump off point for the longer passages south. The paddle boards came out and we took Bernie into the beaches to harass the tiny fish. Afternoon storms brewed over the coast, provided a light display and fortunately declined before reaching the islands. On the last day we were there, Peter who had been living on his wooden boat for 20 years came over and offered us some tuna they had caught on the way in. Poke bowls for dinner setting us up for the next days sailing!
We came very close to being the first boat (unusual for us) to leave Keswick for the big trip south after getting up at 4:30am, but we were pipped at the post by our neighbours who were heading to Curlew Island. There was soon a procession of boats behind us heading out for the 10-13 hour trip south. At this time of year most cruising boats are using the Northerly winds to head out of cyclone territory. We motor sailed until lunch time when the wind and tide whisked us along at 7 knots. We enjoyed passing Mackay as we had enough food, water and fuel not to re-stock. When Sphinx Island came into view we were reminded of our blown water pipe on the trip north which happened in this area. Sails were dropped as we entered the channel between the Percy’s and we found a steady 3 knot current against us as we motored into the anchorage at dusk surrounded by a display of rainbow sands. We would have liked to have stayed a while, however we were mindful of our water situation, and Fi also wanted to spend a couple of nights at Island Head Creek which is the next hop south. Plus there is the inevitable blow predicted for 6 days away so we do need to move along.
The next day brought another long passage to Island Head Creek. We would pass through the washing machine area where we had miscalculated the tide against wind situation on the way North (you can read about that here: https://fiandadriansailing.com/run-to-paradise/). This time we were very careful to travel most of the day with the tide in the same direction as the waves and helping us down the coast. In the late afternoon we dropped sails and navigated the shallow entry to the creek. A catamaran that had been gradually catching us down the coast overtook us in the creek in the ‘race’ to the anchorage. But without the cruising guide book for the area, they followed the electronic charts smack onto a sandbank as we anchored safely in a deep pool in small tributary. After hitting the sandbank and fortunately reversing off, you could see the realisation in their eyes that we had better information than they did, and they headed off sheepishly around the corner to more predictable depths. It reminded us that local cruising guides are worth their weight in gold, and that the charts are not always correct.
For 2 nights we had this spectacular anchorage to ourselves. Its a military training area so there is no buildings, no phone coverage and just spectacular mountainous terrain (and maybe the odd croc). We put the crab pots down, but alas the famous “muddie” didn’t want to play with them, and we tried some fishing, but again, only little trumpeters wanted to play with us. We did find a few massive oysters which we enjoyed as entree one evening.
It was hard to leave Island Head but a combination of a looming SE winds forecast and a dwindling water supply meant it was time to leave. There was a strong tidal current coming into the creek as we left, but we were soon sailing down the coast with the tide changing and giving us a helping hand. A night out at Great Keppel Island before going to the marina was a possibility but a forecast review changed our minds and we set course for Keppel Bay Marina. The shoal areas close to the marina often create more choppy conditions, but today it was flat, with only a 1.5m Cobia. It was definitely too much fish for us and we returned it, hoping for something smaller and more tuna like, but alas…
So we will stop off here in Rosslyn Bay for a day or two, before heading back to Great Keppel Island again! We’re very happy to be back. This is a stunning part of the QLD coast.
Join Fi, Adrian and Bernie as we adventure where the wind takes us.
