Things to make with whey

First time making rennet cheese today. Had a total blast making motza with my friend. Now I have a big pot of whey left over. What to do with it?

Of course, one could feed it to the hens, they do appreciate it.

Instead, we heated up the whey and made ricotta cheese. Two cheeses for the price of one.

The rest of the whey will go into bread baking.

What do you do with your whey?

I made Paneer cheese and used the leftover whey to cook potatoes in for mashed potatoes.

Since I used lemon juice for making the Paneer, they had a wonderful, slightly tangy hint of flavor.

I can vouch for the yumminess!

I've been wondering if any of you have made a whey spray for fruit trees? I've heard of it and would love to have a "recipe" for it.

Whey-ade, add lemon or lime juice to the whey, sweeten to taste.

ricotta (though the yield is so small I don't do it, it's the traditional way to make ricotta

make bread, cook grains, use as soup base, smoothies, ferment vegetables.

I know there are lots more things to do but I feed the whey to the chickens, cats and dogs. A household of one, making 10-20 pounds of cheese per week, no whey I could run that through MY diet.

It has a lot of lactose remaining, and I avoid carbohydrates too.

here is a link that I found through new england cheese making newsletter:

http://blog.cheesemaking.com/using-that-leftover-whey/

Thought it might be a useful link for folks viewing this thread

Thekla McDaniels wrote:no whey I could run that through MY diet.

It has a lot of lactose remaining, and I avoid carbohydrates too.

Nice play with the word!

Lactose.... but no casein! Still has the other proteins.... so it is worth while.
Lactose removal: make kefir! This I call wheyade! Fizzy and acidic taste.

Kefir is a fungi, so it "eats" the lactose. It makes some alcohol, but like 1%.... Yep, alcohol is a mycotoxin!

I made ricotta and then fed the remainder to my piggys.  

Hmmm,
no one has mentioned getost, not even me.  You cook the water out of the whey.  You have to stir it a lot, and then when it is kind of thick in consistency, to get rid of the graininess, beat or whip it.  It has a sweet flavor, I guess you are concentrated the sugars...

"Deborah Niemann" includes the recipe and method in her book:  Raising Goats Naturally.

Currently, I am feeding the bottle baby goats whey.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:here is a link that I found through new england cheese making newsletter:

http://blog.cheesemaking.com/using-that-leftover-whey/

Thought it might be a useful link for folks viewing this thread

I was going to post this on permies today, cool to see it's already here!

I made 30 min. mozzarella today and used the (acid) whey as a soil amendment for recently planted blueberries. I recently found another source for raw milk, so hopefully I'll be using a lot of those leftover whey ideas.

I find the whey is different from different cheeses. What I get fro mozz is sweeter. All of them are great in stew or chowders. Don't you all simply love the Cheese Queen? I found her about 7 years ago. Here cultures for fresh cheese can't be beat. Love her Yogotherm so much I bought 3 more for each of my kids.

Theirs a type of mead called Bländ I've made a fee times that uses whey as a liquid base. And honey n does all these cool things when it gets fermented. It give a wide nutrient range and with whey as a base it's chock full of protein.  

I use yogurt whey to spray on my plum trees. They were heavily infected with black knot fungus. I trimmed it back for a few years with no success, but I started spraying two years ago with whey and it hasn’t returned.


You can also use it in aquaponics to treat ick in fish. The Survival Podcast had an aquaponics guy on a while back and discussed its uses.

Xisca Nicolas wrote:Lactose.... but no casein! Still has the other proteins.... so it is worth while.
Lactose removal: make kefir! This I call wheyade! Fizzy and acidic taste.

Ooh, that sounds fun!  I wonder if anyone has done this or anything similar with the "acid whey" leftover from making yogurt?

I am having a hard time with finding good uses for that.  So far, most recipes and techniques I find online deal with the "sweet whey" produced by cheesemaking, which is a somewhat different animal.

When we had cows that had just had a calf we would start milking that cow separately from all others for about one week. We would not drink that milk but put it in a 50 gal. drum add a few gallons of water and Oats were added to soak for a day or two. That "whey" mixture we fed to our pigs and they fought each other at the trough to get their share and more!  :-)

Here is my running list for ways to use whey:

Whey Butter
Whey Pie
Whey Vinegar
Gjetost
Ricotta
Whey spray for garden - powdery mildew
Garden - tomatoes, blueberries
Soda
Veggie Ferments
Feed to goats/chickens
Soups and stews
Bread  - makes loaves fluffier
Soak grains
Pasta, potatoes, oatmeal, rice
Compost bin
Whey lemonade
Marinade
Warm whey to stretch mozzarella
Brine for mozzarella or feta
Hair product

I have not tried all of these but the one that tickles me the most is BUTTER!  We have two lovely Nigerian Dwarf does in our suburban backyard who provide us with about 2qts of milk a day.  Goat milk cream doesn't separate like cows milk so I thought I would not get any cream to make butter without investing in an expensive piece of equipment that I would have to find storage for and is a challenge to clean after use - cream separator.  Not gonna do it.  Then I saw on NECM that you can put your whey in the fridge overnight and cream will float to the top.  Even with goats milk?  Ay YUP!  I tried it.  Skimmed the cream off the top of one batch of whey and made 2 TBSP of butter.  My very own butter!  Best butter I've ever tasted!  So now my whey goes into the fridge and I skim the cream off the top into a mason jar in the freezer until I get enough cream to make a decent size batch of butter.  I have almost a quart now.  After I've skimmed the cream, I put the whey on the stove and heat it for ricotta.  After ricotta I can use the whey for whey spray in the yard (prevents powdery mildew) or whey lemonade.  From one 2 gallon batch of milk, I made 2.5lbs cheddar cheese, skimmed 10oz cream for butter, cooked 11.5oz ricotta, and made a couple quarts of whey lemonade.  Now that's what I call 'pets with benefits'!

I'm currently working on a list of which cheese's whey works best for the items in the above list.  I don't get any significant return of cream off my chevre.  And gjetost is VERY different based on which cheese's whey I cook down.

James Sims wrote:Theirs a type of mead called Bländ I've made a fee times that uses whey as a liquid base. And honey n does all these cool things when it gets fermented. It give a wide nutrient range and with whey as a base it's chock full of protein.  

James...please share details for making Bländ.  I've been making cheese and dabbling with fruit wines...but I have ALOT of whey (no pigs here to feed it to) to put to best use.  The only thing I found online for Bländ is whey and sugar.  But which whey.  I get whey in all forms, fresh from cheddar, less fresh from Chevre (as that drains a long time), cooked from ricotta.  Can I make Bländ with any and all of these wheys?  And what would happen if I used honey instead of sugar?  We've just harvested our first batch of honey from our hive.  Hoping to be able to move away from sugar.