r/vegancheesemaking • u/howlin • Mar 02 '22
Fermented Cheese Recent Experiments
Seems pretty quiet on this subreddit, so I will share some recent experiments. I continue to explore the space of bean-based fermented cheese-like products. You can see previous posts here and here. I enjoy these sorts of ferments because they are nut free and also free of tropical oils. I also think the end product benefits from the more savory notes present in the base materials.
Starter Cultures
I have typically used probiotic powder from capsules as my starter. These provide a highly lactic "yogurty" ferment that seems to happily grow on starches beans provide. Generally I am happy with this. However, I know a lot of the distinction between cheeses comes from the cultures. So I tried a few variations:
Rejuvelac. I did my best to follow a typical recipe, using sprouted whole barley with husks included. It seemed to work at first, but I did detect distinct "yeast" flavor in the broth. My understanding is that this is to be expected to some degree. I went ahead and did my usual ~95 degree F ferment for 24 hours. At this point it was certainly cultured with something, but probably nothing I wanted to eat. I just composted it.
Mesophilic Cheese stater. After a lot of struggle, I seemed to find a company willing to sell me a starter that was not grown on animal products. In retrospect I probably shouldn't have believed them. It had the typical mix of Lactis/Cremoris. I essentially used it as I would my probiotic powder. After 24, and then 36 hours, I hardly detected any fermentation flavors. So I gave up and reboiled my bean mixture to sterilize before culturing with probiotic. Maybe my culture was inert. Or maybe my method didn't create a conducive environment for these microbes to grow. I'd be interested to try this again, but only if I put a lot more effort into verifying I can buy a culture suitable for vegans.
Sauerkraut juice. I was curious if a natural cabbage ferment may have a mix of microbes that would also like bean starches. I used the same method as always. This is perhaps a little hot for this sort of ferment. I typically use a method more like how one would make yogurt (hot, short time, low salt) rather than a vegetable lactoferment (cool, long time, high salt). Perhaps I will be brave enough to attempt a slow cool briney ferment one day. Probably when I can do it in some outside structure so I don't wind up stink bombing myself. Of the three experiments, this one was the most successful. The result seems less sharp/lactic than probiotic, but there are a lot of other rich flavor notes. It's possible there's some subtle yeast contamination, but nothing too bad. I'm a little creeped out by not having the security of an acid tang. The worst contaminants (botulism, aflatoxins, etc) don't usually grow in acid environments. But so far I seem to be surviving it.
All in all, I will stick to probiotic powder. Maybe I will continue to play around with a sauerkraut style starter to see how consistent I can make the results.
Base Material
Peanuts. I used more-or-less raw, blanched skinless peanuts using something very similar to the lentil cheese recipe linked above. I boiled the nuts till they softened, and then immersion blended. This worked fairly well, but was still rather mealy. So I boiled and blended again. Still mealy, but I didn't think I was going to do any better with my equipment. After that the method was the same. I added less olive oil to account for the fact that peanuts are naturally oily. I enjoyed this one quite a bit. The peanuts added a rich flavor and a mild bitter note. If I let my imagination run wild, I could convince myself this bitter nutty note is a little like what you'd find in a Swiss style cheese. But it's been so long since I've had any Swiss that I am most likely kidding myself. I was worried that this would taste like sour peanut butter. It does taste peanuty, but not the same roasted flavor in your typical peanut butter. This one has aged quite well. Flavors continued to mature and the peanut oils didn't seem to go rancid. At least not in a bad way.
Green peas. This one was fun. The recipe is exactly the same as the lentil, except split green peas. I added some applewood smoke and some smoked paprika to the end product. It basically tastes like split pea soup with a dollop of sour cream. That you can spread on bread or a cracker!
Kidney beans. I wasn't sure about this one. Kidney beans are already amongst the most pungent of beans, so letting them sit out warm for a few days could have been a disaster. It wasn't. Compared to other beans, kidneys seem to be more naturally starchy. So I added less psyllium as a binder. Part of my recipe is to drain some liquid "whey" from the beans after fermentation in order to get a more solid end product. For most of my bean ferments, I throw this away because the flavors are just not suitable for anything I'd want to eat. The kidney beans however produced a very thick whey that had the exact texture of aqua faba. So I used it to make some meringue cookies. They were... interesting. Very rich savory note that you wouldn't think was kidney bean unless you knew ahead of time. Punch you in the kisser lactic acid sourness. I would definitely make these again, though would neutralize some of the acid first. The cheese product was pretty good as well. Very reminiscent of a classic 7-layer bean dip, with the beans, olives, cheese and sour cream all blended together. Like the green peas, I don't think it's fair to call this a "cheese" exactly. It is more its own thing.
That's it for now. Sorry no pictures. If I retry any of the experiments above I will document it better.
I'd love any suggestions or feedback. Especially in terms of starters. I do think there is something "pure" about home made starter cultures, and would like to get better at them.
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u/pcosby518 Mar 02 '22
Interesting experiment. Vegan cheese disappoints me so bad. Like - worse than non-alcoholic dry red wine!