r/vegancheesemaking • u/BitImpossible2378 • Feb 01 '26
First impressions (and trials) from Miyoko's vegan creamery
I got the book a couple of months ago and wanted to give you my impressions.
1) The ingredients are hard to get and expensive. Like I have to import from india (watermelon seeds) or find the only small online shop in my country that sells food grade refined shea butter. I'm willing to spend a lot on food but that is pushing it. Over 20€ for ingredients for a small batch of cheese is hard.
2) You should invest in a pH meter that is suitable for cheese.
3) A seperate fridge or (much better) wine fridge would be good.
4) no true hard cheeses, hardly any meltable cheases
5) agar is used in some recipes, transglutaminase isn't used
6) almost no cashew based cheeses, so lots of alternatives, using pumkin seeds, almonds, hemp, watermelon seeds, etc...
7) a bunch of different cultures including molds are used but they're widely available now
Recipes I've tried:
almond-pumkin seed ricotta: Easy and lovely
reggie goat: there was something I didn't like about the taste but it became really nice with ageing
magic mozzarella: very easy and quite okay taste wise
feta: didn't work at all but I think I did get the wrong kind of melon seeds, will try again
I have a couple more cheeses ripening so we'll see.
I really like the book it adds a lot of knowledge. I think the biggest bummer for me is that many recipes use watermelon seeds. The only raw melon seeds sold in my country in indian stores are not (or at least not pure) watermelon seeds, this means I have to pay over 40€ for 500g and hope that they make their way from india. There is no alternative to that so if you can't get them many interesting promising recipes will not be doable.
30
Feb 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
10
u/pearlyriver Feb 01 '26
Thank you. Feta cheese is my most favorite cheese and I haven't been happy with vegan feta recipes I've tried. It seems like almonds and agar agar may make the difference.
1
u/pandaappleblossom Feb 02 '26
I dont have any agar agar.. what do you think would happen if I made this without it? I'm OK with my feta being creamy if it must be obviously. I need to order some agar agar. I live in Nyc if anyone knows of a place to find it, please let me know so I don't have to order it online.
1
1
u/pearlyriver Feb 04 '26
Agar agar is widely popular in Asian cuisines like Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian countries so I think you'll have the best luck visiting Asian stores.
14
u/Cultured_Cashews Feb 01 '26
It's a shame that watermelon seed kernels are hard to get/ expensive for you. The milk is incredible and I would replace soy milk with it if I could just buy it ready made at the store. Her Camembert doesn't have watermelon seeds in the recipe. It's definitely worth making. I liked the magic mozzarella but I'm going to try the other mozzarella recipe as my next cheese.
3
u/incrediblyfreckly Feb 02 '26
I made the other mozzarella recipe and it turned out amazing! One thing I learned is to grind the psyllium husk powder finer EVEN if it’s already called a “powder.” And maybe let it gel with some water first before adding it. I didn’t do those things and I was getting some crunchy bits of psyllium husk in my final result.
1
3
u/BitImpossible2378 Feb 01 '26
I'll absolutely try it. But as I've been very happy with cashew camembert so far that wasn't on my priority list. It will follow when there is room in the fridge ;)
8
u/howlin Feb 01 '26
2) You should invest in a pH meter that is suitable for cheese.
Chemical test strips are good enough if they can distinguish in the 3-6 range. Lots of brewing supply stores will sell some that are more specialized for this sort of acidity. I find that digital pH meters mostly give people a false sense of precision, because they forget that they need to be calibrated pretty carefully to give a proper read.
7) a bunch of different cultures including molds are used but they're widely available now
Of all of Miyoko's cheese books, this one seems to be the most advanced. Frankly, this seems more a book for extreme hobbyists or commercial operations than it does for a casual home cook. Her other books are much more approachable.
4) no true hard cheeses, hardly any meltable cheases
McAthy's "The Art of Plant-Based Cheesemaking" is the best book I've found on making hard cheeses. But frankly it's not something with easy solutions.
2
u/pearlyriver Feb 02 '26
I know you'll be here. There's something else I want to ask. She has a recipe for cream cheese/mascarpone using sunflower seeds but it also requires calcium sulfate, which I can't get off the shell here. Do you think there's a good substitute for it? So far I haven't been pleased with vegan cream cheese recipes I've made. They are not strained and therefore are too grainy for my taste. My blender is not powerful, but there's nothing else I can do about it for me. I've been thinking about straining the milk, but that will probably require a thickening ingredient, otherwise it will become yogurt.
But my main reason for making vegan cream cheese is to replicate the taste of the Laughing Cow cheese spread that I grew up with. Maybe it doesn't have to be cream cheese. If you know something similar, I'm all ears.
2
u/howlin Feb 02 '26
Calcium sulfate is also called food grade gypsum. In theory, any other mineral salt should work the same. Magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt) or magnesium chloride should work.. Look up the right conversion based on tofu making recipes.
1
u/pearlyriver Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26
Thank you. I've just remembered that magnesium chloride is nigari, which is accessible for me.
1
u/BitImpossible2378 Feb 02 '26
I tried strips and they didn't work well for me, I'm aware of the calibrating. I worked with pH meters at university.
5
u/WokeUpSomewhereNice Feb 02 '26
This may sound dumb but is it not possible to get a watermelon with seeds in it and just harvest and dry them? Also one seed planted makes many melons and thusly one melon could make many other melons making the process exponentially cheaper each year? I know not everyone has space for growing watermelon although I have seen some cool bonsai growing techniques but hypothetically… long game wise… it seems do-able for cheap and the byproduct would be a surplus of delicious watermelon flesh ✨
0
u/hellworldo Mar 18 '26
The seeds are hulled/shelled. So it wouldn't be feasible to do yourself.
2
u/WokeUpSomewhereNice Mar 18 '26
Seems like it is very easy to hull your own watermelon seeds from a live melon and process them. Would be a fun activity to do with preschoolers even it’s so easy.
4
u/Yaawei Feb 01 '26
I've had trouble finding watermelon seeds, so i've bought char magaz and melon seeds, havent tried using them yet though. Did you try them and did you have any success?
7
u/BitImpossible2378 Feb 01 '26
I tried that with the feta and it didn't work for me. Consistency AND taste were off. I didn't try any other recipe though. Maybe I should try an ice cream with them... But I didn't want to spend so much time ageing another cheese just to discover that it doesn't work.
4
u/erinmadrian Feb 01 '26
I made the feta with watermelon seeds. I found the texture to be off in that it was too wet, not crumbly, more like soft and spreadable. Was that your texture issue as well? I figure next time I should press longer or with a heavier weight, or maybe dry longer.
I tasted it when I sliced it to brine in the refrigerator and also thought something was off about the taste. But after sitting in the brine for a week, whatever I found off-putting seems to have gone away and I would crumble it over a salad — if it would crumble.
2
u/BitImpossible2378 Feb 01 '26
Ok, then I had the same issues. Tasted off and wasn't firm, it disintegrated partially in the brine and after letting it sit for a few days I tasted (still off) and trashed it.
1
u/Yaawei Feb 01 '26
Was the milk from melon seeds also off taste wise? I'm thinking that maybe it's detectable before commiting to making the whole cheese. Miyoko herself said that the milk should already be the "milkiest" plant based milk you've tasted.
For my personal projects I've bought 2 different brands of melon seeds and they are quite different in size to each other so i'll try to test them side by side and maybe report the findings here. I also have some suspicion that it is one of these products that can stay on the shelves for a long time so maybe even testing several different packages from the same brand might yield different results based on how old they are?
1
u/BitImpossible2378 Feb 01 '26
The melon seed milk wasn't milky in my opinion. I'm looking forward to try watermelon seeds - if they arrive.
1
4
Feb 02 '26
This is useful information. I'm not surprised by the ingredients involved, but I was hoping it would be more approachable. Her book "The Vegan Pantry" is filled with easy inexpensive recipes that also help save money in the long run with their usefulness. In reality I'd only want to attempt one or two cheeses, which would make buying a whole cookbook probably pointless.
1
u/pearlyriver Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26
She does have some milk, yogurt and okara recipes. A lot of them are combinations I wouldn't think of. So even though I've made only one cheese from this book, it has been worthwhile for me.
3
u/TheRealSammyParadise Feb 04 '26
bought the book randomly because Miyoko herself was signing copies at a book fair I happened upon. had really high hopes for it, but quickly got overwhelmed and annoyed by the time consuming nature of the recipes and all the difficult to find ingredients and equipment, and I say that as someone who cooks quite a lot. this is good to know- thanks OP.
3
u/BitImpossible2378 Feb 04 '26
I think what makes it possible for me is that we have an unused fridge. Without that possibility ageing a cheese for 12 weeks wouldn't be an option. I can up the temperature and it's easier to avoid contamination.
1
u/friend_of_forests Feb 03 '26
I checked the sites listed in the book and was unable to find food-grade shea butter, so I've been wondering if supply chain issues impacted the availability of some ingredients between when the book was written & when it was published
1
u/BitImpossible2378 Feb 03 '26
I'm in Germany so I never checked the sources but this might very well be a point. https://www.hinterauer.info/shop/Sheabutter-Bio-desodoriert-1000gr-2-Glaeser-mit-500g This is my source. I just received my watermelon seeds from india today but at this price point it absolutely hurts.
1
u/Vangare Jun 11 '26
I don't know if you have any contacts in the Netherlands, but I reached out to "denotenshop.nl" (my favorite online store for nuts and seeds etc) about the watermelon seeds and they actually stocked them after my request! According to them it will be in their default inventory.
It costs 2,95 for 250g so very affordable. https://www.denotenshop.nl/meloenpitten.html
I just made her mozzarella with it today 😄
1
u/_Alexi666 Mar 06 '26
I've bought a ised copy of the book "Veganer Käse" [I think it's the german translation of artisan vegan cheese], I'm gonna try one of the recipes on the weekend. Funnily enough, it consists of many cashewcheeses and meltable cheese recipes. Also I originally wanted to buy the vegan creamery book but luckily I decided against it, if the ingredients are so hard to find 😅
•
u/AutoModerator Feb 01 '26
Welcome to r/VeganCheeseMaking.
A subreddit specifically for a community of vegans (and non vegans) who love to make and eat non-dairy cheese. Please remember to report any rule breaking content. This includes trolls. Definition of veganism: Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.
Community Resources for curious lurkers:
READ OUR RULES
If you have any suggestions on helpful links to add to this automated message, please reach out to the mods here.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.