Gjetost (Norwegian Goat Whey Cheese)

Making cheese means making whey, lots of whey. More whey than one knows what to do with. Usually I make ricotta with my whey (how-to here). I love ricotta and have a number of recipes I use it in (click links for those): as a fat substitute in biscuits and ice cream (called gelato), also in cheesecake and gnocchi (Italian dumplings). But ricotta leaves whey behind as well, more than I can used in cooking. With about four gallons of whey in the fridge at the moment, I thought it was time to try something else.

I grabbed David Asher’s The Art of Natural Cheesemaking and looked at the chapter on whey cheeses. Of course ricotta is always listed first, but then I saw his recipe for mysost. Mysost (my’ sost) is a whey cheese made from cow milk whey. The goat version is gjetost (yeh’ tohst or g tohst’) which means goat cheese. It is also called brunost (brun’ ohst) or brown cheese.

The recipe looked simple enough with only two ingredients: whey and cream. The down side was that it called for two to three hours of constant stirring after the cream is added. Now, me and sitting still don’t get along very well, so I started looking for alternatives. I compared David’s recipe with the one in Ricki Carroll’s Home Cheese Making. No shortening of cooking time, but it called for using a blender. That didn’t seem very authentic to me, however, my own method didn’t turn out so very authentic either! I used my crock pot! It solved the constant stirring problem and worked well for me.

Here is the process in pictures.

• 1 gal. fresh sweet goat whey from any goat cheese
• 1.5 C goat cream (how to extract goat cream here)

The cream is optional, but usually added to give the final product a creamier texture.

Primost is a softer, spreadable version of mysost or getost. It’s made by not cooking the whey down so far. I think it would take a bit of experimenting to learn how long to cook the whey for the desired end product.

Then it was into the fridge for overnight. The next morning the challenge was getting it out of the glass dish. I can see why the Norwegians use take-apart wooden molds!

Mine was too hard to spread, but too soft to make firm, thin slices. But that’s okay because it gives me experiential information for next time.

How does it taste? Heavenly! You’d never guess it was cheese! It has a tangy, nutty, slightly sweet flavor that is a delight to the taste buds. We had it for breakfast in place of our usual peanut butter and jelly on toast.

What did Dan think? He agreed it’s a definite winner. We really like our PB&J breakfasts, but until I can grow peanuts and make our own peanut butter, this is an outstanding replacement, in both taste and price (free versus about $4.50 per jar of “natural” peanut butter.)

Will I try it again? Absolutely! I’d like to experiment with no cream and also with using whole goat milk instead of cream, just to see the texture differences (plus I have way more whey than cream). I’d also like to try primost, the spreadable version. That might be the best option for our morning breakfast sandwiches.

The only other thing I have are a few more links for both gjetost and mysost:

• Gavin Webber (formerly of The Greening of Gavin) has a good video here. He adds cinnamon to his.
• David Fankhauser’s gjetost photo recipe (no added cream) is here.
• Docaitta’s recipe (here) used the whey from whole milk ricotta. That recipe is first, followed by the one for mysost. Also without cream.
• And if you would like to hear the authentic Norwegian pronunciation of gjetost, plus see Norwegian dairy goats and how they milk them (makes my back hurt just to watch!) click here.