creamy whey

[ali]

Hi everyone,
I'm in the middle of making my very first batch of whey, however I think I have a problem.

I have let a quart of raw milk sour for about 4 days now, and I'm straining the solids through muslin at the moment, but the whey has come out really creamy rather than clear yellow, like everyone else's whey looks on youtube videos.
I guess that perhaps I should have skimmed the cream off the milk first before I left it to sour.

So my question is, will it still be ok to use as whey?
Once the solids have stopped dripping, will the crem rise to the top if I put the whey into a jar? And if I then skim the cream off of that, will I be able to carry on and use the whey as normal, or have I ruined the whole process and have to start again from scratch??

I have to say that it smells very cheesy but rather nice actually, however its my first time doing anything like this, so I am panicking a bit, I know that its going to be safe and ok, but I've had 40+ years of programming that anything soured or fermented is life-threatening, and its hard at the moment to shake those doubts.

Thanks, everyone, any help would be great

[Raymondo]

I find muslin is too coarse to strain clabbered milk (or yoghurt to make labneh). It lets more of the solids through than I like. Nothing wrong with that per se though. I use an old white T-shirt as the filter. You get much better separation IMHO.
Your whey with extra solids will still be okay, just a little cheesier, as you've already noted. What do you intend doing with it?

[ali]

Thanks for the t-shirt tip Raymondo, I can see how that would be better.
I was going to use the whey to ferment other things like veggies, beet kvass, etc.
Its been sitting in the fridge over night and has seperated to some degree but both layers are really creamy looking.
If I add it to something like guacamole, the cheesyness wouldn't be a problem for me, and will probably be quite nice, but I was quite taken with the idea of making fermented lemonade...but I really don't think thats going to work with this batch of whey.
I'll be buying raw milk again on saturday and I'll try again, but this time I'll skim off as much cream as I can at first, and then when the time comes I'll use a t-shirt.
Thanks Raymondo

[ali]

I thought that I would just post a quick update, in case the information from my post might help someone in the future.

Firstly, Raymondo's T-shirt suggestion worked a treat.
I did skim of most of the cream before I started to sour the milk this time, but couldn't get it all off, but the t-shirt managed to keep it out of the whey.
So I now have perfect looking whey, which I have been using to ferment everything I can, I've made some fermented lemonade and also a raw fermented mango chutney I've still got a while to go before they are ready, so don't know how they will turn out), and I've been using the whey on a daily basis to ferment guacamole and also raw sprouted chickpea houmous which has worked out lovely.

With my wonderful curd cheese, I've made an uncooked cheese cake on a biscuit base with a layer of honey mixed with tahini and some homemade butter, and covered in sliced bananas.

I'm loving all these wonderful experiences, there are so many things to try. What a shame so many of us had lost all this fermenting and culturing knowledge.

[2gentlehands]

Made cooked cheesecake. Yummy. Didn't need lemon. Will try uncooked next.