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
