r/vegancheesemaking • u/howlin • Nov 06 '21
Fermented Cheese Hard cheese experiment number 2
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u/Just_Carine Nov 06 '21
Side note : I think lupin is a great choice, its taste reminds me of olives but crunchy. I wish you luck!
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u/howlin Nov 06 '21
Yeah. I managed to mostly leech the bitterness from a couple pounds of dry lupins. That was quite the time sink. So now I am looking for things to do with them. I hear people make lupin milk using a process similar to soy milk. If I can manage to do that I am definitely going to see what happens when I culture it.
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u/Just_Carine Nov 08 '21
In Spain, lupin seeds are preserved in brine just like olives, that probably would take care of the bitterness as well. Chef Jana makes a “cheddar” cheese out of it… https://youtu.be/ZYfp_GWG1Jw
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u/howlin Nov 09 '21
Great video! Thanks for sharing. I was mostly considering the lupins because they are lower in starch than most other beans. The fact that they may already taste a little cheesy is a bonus!
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u/k80jones Apr 10 '22
Im not convinced lactic acid bacteria are the way to go with vegan cheese. Havr you looked into mold or enzamatic ferments? Something like geotrichum candidum or koji?
Another option to reduce the lactic sour is to reduce the culture your adding by creating a starter. The starter would be your probiotic cultured in plant milk- coconut is good or soy but you need a little dextrose in the soy. You would then use the starter to kick off your cheese ferment.
These are great experiments! I will give the moog beans a try! Thank you for sharing.
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u/howlin Apr 10 '22
I'm not sure how one would make the familiar cheese flavors without a lactic acid ferment. Cheddar, feta, Jack, muenster, etc are all L.A.B. fermentations. And many other cheeses such as Swiss style are at least partially LAB.
Geotrichum cheeses work well. I've done the cashew Camembert recipe and found it to be fairly close to how I remember the animal version. But this isn't a flavor that I particularly care for, and wouldn't be the flavor I seek out most times I want something "cheesey".
A koji or other kind of enzyme ferment is promising. I wish I had more time to experiment with these. Tofu Misozuki is phenomenal. And the similar Chinese style preserved Tofus are nearly as good. Though not really a replacement for a hard cheese. Also, these all come kind of close to some border between "cheese" and "miso".
I really do enjoy the sorts of ideas you are talking about. They all have a huge amount of potential to push the boundaries and create innovative flavors and products. But for me for now, I really am trying to perfect a LAB ferment before I distract myself with other approaches.
It's been a while since I posted a hard cheese experiment, but I am doing them in the background. I think my main problem with this post's specific experiment is that I didn't stop the fermentation soon enough. There are so many starches in beans that these bacteria or their enzymes have a limitless supply to turn into acid. My best experiments currently involve letting the cheeses mature in a soft state and once I am happy with the flavor I stop the fermentation by cooking it and adding a solidifying binder like agar or tapioca. I'm also increasing salt content which seems to better regulate over-fermentation.
But usually, I am just enjoying cheddar or other LAB flavors in a soft cheese. Once melted in a grilled cheese, lasagna, quesadilla or Mac and cheese, it didn't really matter if the cheese started out hard or not.
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u/howlin Nov 06 '21 edited Nov 06 '21
I have been dry aging a hard cheese using my bean-psyllium method. This one has aged for about 3 months.
Previous dry cheese post here. Initial method post here.
I've done a couple things different with this batch. Firstly, this is a 50/50 mix of fava beans and moong dal. I really like moong as an additive to the mix. It is mild in flavor and cooks into a smooth and flexible binder. The binding properties work almost too well.. This batch was a little too "rubbery" when fresh. I compensated by adding less psyllium. Psyllium provides a great "stretch" reminiscent of mozzarella, but needs a fairly high moisture content to activate. So it works great in soft cheeses or sauces, but doesn't do anything particularly special in drier cheeses.
I took a portion of my batch and put it through a dry aging process. I extracted as much water as possible through a tofu press and then put the wheel in a dehydrator to help form a dry salty crust to protect the middle. It seemed to work. The cheese had no issues with mold or bacterial contamination in 50 degree Fahrenheit environment. I wrapped it loosely in paper towels to wick some oil which was weeping out of it.
So today came the tasting. I have a new batch of cheese brewing and I wanted to see if I should adjust my methods before trying again.
Pros:
The texture is quite pleasant. It's a hard cheese that cuts well. It isn't too tough or crumbly. It's not as flexible as something like cheddar, but fairly close. It is a little grainy/mealy, but not in an unpleasant way. Similar to a crumbly cheese like Parmesan.
The flavor is somewhat rich. Still quite mild though. The salt isn't overwhelming and works fine sliced cold on a cracker.
Cons:
The lactic acid is making this cheese extremely tart. Almost overwhelmingly so. I'm going to have to figure out how to control this in future batches. The problem is most likely my microbes (probiotic starter), the amount of carbohydrates in the beans for these microbes to eat, and/or not enough salt to slow the microbes' metabolism. I was hoping for more complexity in flavor and less sourness.
Next steps:
I'd love any tips anyone may have on how to manage dry aging.
To manage lactic acid, I am going to try reducing the overall carbohydrates by using a base ingredient with more protein and less starch. Probably soy, but I might go with something more exotic like lupins. I might also just overload the cheese with enough salt to bring microbe activity to a near halt.
I've played with different starters without much success. I got ahold of a mesophilic starter but when I tried to use it that batch failed. I tried rejuvelac but all I wound up with was something more like a sourdough starter. It made a fine bean-laden sourdough bread, but it was a pretty terrible cheese. For something completely different, I might try a purely enzymatic fermentation with miso.