Abstract The aim of the present study was to evaluate the viability of probiotic bacteria Lactobacillus acidophilus (LA-5)® and Bifidobacterium lactis (BB-12)® encapsulation using spray drying (SD) with ricotta whey supplemented with gelatin and hydrolyzed collagen as encapsulating material. Following previous experiments, these gelatin:collagen ratios were defined: 7:3 (gelatin:collagen) for L. acidophilus LA-5 and 9:1 for B. lactis BB-12, which had reduced bacterial counts of 0.46 and 1.26 log Colony-Forming Units (CFU)/g, respectively. There was a viability loss of 0.70 log CFU/g and 0.34 log CFU/g for LA-5 and BB-12, respectively, throughout storage (30 days, 25 ºC). When exposed to the simulated gastric juice, encapsulated LA-5 and BB-12 had higher survival rates (89.91 and 95.83%, respectively) than non-encapsulated microorganisms under the same conditions (54.78 and 57.27%, respectively). In the presence of bile salts, encapsulated LA-5 and BB-12 had survival of 77.44% and 51.05%, respectively, while free cells showed rates of over 99%. After 30 days, these rates decreased to 71.07 and 50.60%, for encapsulated LA-5 and BB-12, respectively. Therefore, ricotta whey associated to gelatin and hydrolyzed collagen can be considered a potential encapsulating agent for the SD of probiotic dairy bacteria.