Vegan Cheese

I've been slacking with my cheese-making posts but don't worry, I'm still working on cheeses.  This recipe is less cheese and more dip or spread that just happens to taste very cheesy even though it has no dairy in it.  I'm not sure it is something I would make again because it was a multi-day process to first make the millet rejuvelac and then process cashews.  None of the steps took that long though and I had leftovers of all the ingredients so I might give it another shot and share with with some vegan friends and see what they think.  It is really tasty as a dip and was delicious spread on crackers.

I didn't get a picture of the final result but I used one of my new cheese molds to shape it in to a wheel.

Cotija (?)

So far cheese making reminds me quite a bit of bread making in that you usually use most of the same ingredients no matter what variety of cheese (or bread) you are making.  The process for making specific varieties change slightly (though usually not drastically) so that you can build skill over time.  Once you get comfortable making sandwich bread you nearly have all the skills to make bagels for example.

Usually with bread making though you at least can recognize what the end result was attempting to be (ciabatta rarely turns out to resemble bialy, even though the dough is almost the same).  I can't say the same thing about my cheese-making so far.  I was attempting to make the crumbly Mexican Cotija but the end result seemed harder and more uniform (closer to a Havarti maybe, though really I'm not enough of a cheese expert to tell you).  The results tasted great though so I'm not complaining.

As I said the processes was similar to the other cheese I've made so far, but this is the first time I've had to press the cheese to remove more whey.  I used an old deli container that I poked holes in the bottom of and placed another deli container on top of the cheese inside to create a cheese mold (I should probably just invest in a small cheese mold which would make pressing a lot easier).

I tried all sorts of things to get enough weight on the cheese to press it (it was pressed overnight).  I eventually put the the set up in the sink so that the walls of the sink would help keep the weight stable and wouldn't tip off and send my pot of water (which was acting as the weight) all over the kitchen floor.

After pressing I let the cheese soak in a brine for another day.  I probably should have just stopped right here and eaten the cheese like this.  It looked crumbly and had the level of moisture I expected (I should mention I've only eaten cotija once before so I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for in terms of flavor and texture).  My recipe said the cheese should age for 14 days so I placed it in my cheese cave and flipped it every day for the next two weeks.

You can see from the picture of the finished cheese below it seems to have dried out too much.  I'm having trouble keeping the humidity high enough in my cave so I may also have to keep the cheese in a plastic bag or Tupperware container with the lid ajar while in the cave to keep the moisture level high enough.

The final result tasted great but I did have to cut off the rind that had built up on it while it was in the cave.  I'm excited to try another pressed cheese to see if I can get better results in the cave during the aging process.

Homemade cheese cave set-up

After I declared 2013 the Year of Cheese! I quickly realize I was going to need a set-up for aging some of the cheeses.  Most of the recipes I looked at called for aging cheese at a temperature of around 55 degrees Fahrenheit and around 90% humidity.  After doing some research some websites suggested a wine fridge because you can control both the temperature and humidity, but they can be spendy.

With some additional Googling I found there are a number of ways to create your own cheese cave.  I settled on this design.  The temperature control has been working well but I'm still trying to figure out how to keep the humidity up enough.  When I open the door to check on the cheese most of the moisture escapes.  I bought a weather station to monitor the conditions inside the fridge and the receiver sits right on top so I can see it right away.  Currently the cave is set up in our living room but I imagine LJ well want it hidden away somewhere else sooner or later.

Year of Cheese: Mozzarella

I may have been a little overzealous by declaring 2013 the Year of Cheese!  As I began reading more in my cheese-making book I realized lots of cheeses need to age in very specific conditions, usually around 55 degrees and high humidity, for many months.  Though it stays unusually cool in our apartment, I'm not sure I can guarantee a constant 55 degrees.  I'm working on some possible solutions though.

Luckily I still have a ways to go until I'm ready to try making aged cheeses and there are plenty of fresh curd cheeses that are delicious and I decided to give mozzarella a shot.  I had to purchase some additional ingredients (rennet, culture, a pH meter, heat proof gloves) and I ended up turning a $4 half gallon of milk in to a $4 ball of mozzarella and it only took me 10 hours.

The most difficult thing I think in cheese making is that you need to hold the milk within a very specific temperature range for an extended period of time.  In making this mozzarella I held the milk within 2 degrees of 90 degrees for a couple of hours.  I accomplished this by keeping the milk in my small pot and set it in a water bath.  I kept thermometers in both pots to keep a close eye on the temperature.

After the curd developed from the addition of rennet and culture I sliced the cheese in to curds to let the whey drain.

After some more heating of the curds I drained the whey.

I then reheated the curds which melted together and gave off more whey.

As the curds melted back together I was waiting for the cheese to reach a pH of 5.2.  After a couple of hours I eventually gave up and settled with a pH of 5.4, mostly because it was getting close to bedtime and I wasn't sure how accurately calibrated my pH meter was.

At this point I cut up the curds again.  I heated up the reserved whey and prepared to melt the curds back together while stretching the curd and forming a ball. 

I created a brine using quite a bit of salt and the reserved whey.  The cheese soaked in the brine overnight and then I stored it in the fridge wrapped in plastic.

The final result was delicious but a bit too salty because I let it sit in the brine a few hours too long.  Now I know to follow brining instructions more closely.

The Year of Cheese: Queso Blanco

On Saturday morning, I declared to LJ, that 2013 will be The Year of Cheese (Y.O.C.)!!  (I also declared it will be the year of running, but that is for another blog post, maybe)  LJ was quite excited to hear about the possibilities of a year of cheese, though a little confused about what I meant.  I received an excellent book during our holiday family gift exchange and it inspired me to spend 2013 learning a new kitchen skill, namely cheese making.

Though I don't have a lot of the equipment that will eventually be necessary (a cheese box?), the nice thing about the book is it starts with basic cheeses and slowly moves to more advanced cheeses.  I started with one of the simplest cheeses, Queso Blanco, mostly because I only needed to find milk and cheese cloth (butter muslin technically) at the store because I already had sea salt and cider vinegar at home.  If you are interested in trying it yourself the process is so simple you can watch this two minute video and learn everything you need.

A quick note about the milk, and purchasing it.  Your standard supermarket milk won't work for most cheese making because of the way it is pasteurized and homogenized.  If you can find a natural food store or local dairy you should be able to find milk that is either raw or not ultra-pasteurized and homogenized.  I purchased a half gallon at our local co-op, but I may have to find another source for milk as the co-op finally caught on that LJ and I are not members, and joining a co-op might be just a little too Granola-y for us.

The cheese turned out, though I realized after the fact that I should have added more vinegar because my whey was still cloudy and should have been clear.  The recipe instructed to add more vinegar if necessary, but since it was my first time I had no idea what the whey should look like. (I'm also planning on using the leftover whey to make bagels with.)

The next cheeses I'm planning on trying will be feta and cotija.  I need to round up some more equipment and ingredients and they take longer to make (a few weeks) so the next post in the year of cheese may be a month or so away.