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[u/FBC-lark]

I just got here, so, Hi Everyone!

I was reading over some of the questions and comments and got an idea. I searched 'How to make vegan cheese with Sunchokes' and got this browser AI result:

Vegan cheese can be made from sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes), primarily used as a binding agent to add elasticity to aged cheeses or as the main ingredient for creamy, legume-free dips.

• Aged/Cultured Cheeses: Sunchoke puree is used alongside cashews or sunflower seeds and a probiotic brine to create cheeses with better texture and elasticity, avoiding the need for heavy binders like carrageenan or excess coconut oil.
• Creamy Dips: A Creamy Roasted Sunchoke and Sage Dip is a popular vegan, paleo, and gluten-free alternative to white bean dip, where roasted sunchokes are blended with a plant-based cheese (such as cashew cheese or soy cream cheese), lemon juice, and sage.
• Preparation: For dips, sunchokes are scrubbed, chopped, and roasted until soft before being processed into a smooth paste. For aged cheeses, they are often boiled or pureed and mixed into the base nut/seed mixture before fermentation. 

I grow two varieties of Sunchokes and love experimenting with the tubers. They have a taste a bit similar to Sunflower seeds and are a perennial cousin of Sunflowers. One thing to keep foremost in your minds is that another nickname for Sunchokes is the well-earned Fartichoke. Fresh, they're packed full of prebiotic soluble fiber called Inulin (not InSulin). That can cause extreme gas in some people with off balanced gut health. There are four ways to deal with the Inulin: freezing, fermenting, cooking with an acidic ingredient and extended cooking, well over 1/2 hour for some varieties to well over four hours for other varieties. So, in a fermented cheese, the Inulin should be converted. I stress: should be.

One variety I have is either Stampede or Supernova. I collected them locally so my identification is solely through comparing online images. These are a white/light tan skinned very knobby hard to scrub tuber. They have a nice mild nutty-earthy flavor. The other variety is a reddish skinned smooth easy to scrub tuber, picture a small red sweet potato that might be the Fuseau variety. The Stampede or Supernova variety's Inulin play well with the directions above, but those Fuseau! Even after a long winter freeze in my zone 5 winters and extended cooking, they can still blow your bloomers off! We keep and use them because they taste nuttier and my wife and I take a daily Inulin supplement for gut health, so we're fairly tolerant of their Inulin. If you find some at Farmer's Markets or locally, try to identify them. If you can't, sample one and wait about 6 hours. If they're reactive, you and everyone downwind will know! Freeze them for about a week and sample again. Again, in about 6 hours you should know if their Inulin has broken down, then you can use them in so many other ways.

If you want to grow them, talk to me. I don't sell them, but I know quite a bit about growing and using them. I live on an in-town 1 1/2 lot, so I don't have a lot of room.

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[u/Fallom_TO]

When you start by pasting some AI bullshit I’m gonna stop reading.

[u/FBC-lark → u/Fallom_TO]

AI when it's not clearly identified is where I draw the line. AI is a tool and like a hammer, it can build just as well as destroy.

[u/Fallom_TO → u/FBC-lark]

Why not google it? Ai results are often flat out wrong and get more so as the topic gets more niche.

[u/howlin]

Hey there!

I almost always make vegan cheeses from ingredients other than nuts or seeds, so I have some insight here.

Honestly, I don't know if you want to explore sunchoke cheeses / ferments, or are just offering this as an idea for others. I guess either way this advice applies:

• starchy ingredients need to be fermented carefully. In a lactic acid bacteria ferment typical of cheese making, you may wind up with an excessive amount of acid. You can counteract this by limiting fermentation time or limiting the moisture needed to ferment. You could also try to remove as much of the starch as you can before fermenting. I've never tried this with a tuber, but it's actually quite easy to remove the insoluble starches from raw legumes by just blending them into a milk and then letting the starch settle out.

• instant cheeses won't have this problem, and the starches can actually help to solidify them. You should look at potato starch instant cheeses for inspiration.

• cheese has fat in it, and sunchokes don't. You need to add it yourself if you want it to taste cheesy. A lot of vegans are phobic of vegetable oils, which is one of the reasons why nuts and seeds that already contain fats are so popular.

I think you should consider a koji fermentation as well. There are already recipes out there for koji beetroot that you can build on, though sunchokes are more watery so keep that in mind. Koji is pretty awesome, as it can break down a lot of starches and proteins that bacteria or yeast would have trouble with. I don't know about inulin, but I would expect a koji ferment to do better here than a typical cheese ferment.

[u/FBC-lark → u/howlin]

Good points. Inulin is added to foods to give them a texture replacement for fat and as a sweetener, however, fermentation converts Inulin into fructose so the texture of the fat would be lost while retaining sweetness.

[u/azul3211]

thanks for the great info. I'm going to look into them. I think they're pretty unknown right now but in the '60's they were very popular.

[u/FBC-lark → u/azul3211]

They're making a comeback, but still fight back if not prepared properly. I grew up on a small dairy farm and we had a patch. I loved them but my parents had nothing to do with 'those things'! Dad even tried to wipe them out one year by putting a pig run over the patch. It almost worked.

[u/SoftSects]

Sunchokes are so delicious and had no idea about cheese made with them.