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So I love fancy cheeses, or am growing to love them more and more. And nothing appeals to me more than having a nice hunk of port salut on a piece of bread and sipping wine with my girlfriend. But I have a problem and that problem is rennet. Rennet is an enzyme used in a lot of cheeses that comes out of animal stomachs and my vegetarian girlfriend is not a fan of that. I'd like to continue to enjoy my fancy cheeses, but so many of even the fancy organicy stores like Whole Paycheck and Trader Joes have most of their cheeses made from rennet. The only solution I can come up with is that I need to start making my own cheese. But I am no cheesemaker, and have not the slightest notion as to where to start. Since goons are pretty good at the whole DIY thing, I thought I'd turn to you for advice. What do I need to start making vegetarian cheese, and how costly would this endeavor be if I wanted to see it through?
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Sep 15, 2015 22:06
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| # ? Apr 16, 2024 18:05 |
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Edit: If you're just reading this now, I wrote up a much more in-depth article on my blog. I do home cheesemaking and love it. I just opened a 2 month gouda yesterday and it turned out fantastic. It's not hard, but you need to do a lot of reading, and it takes a lot of time. Cheesemaking.com is by far my favorite resource for information, ingredients and recipes. Start there and read everything you can find on the site. You should understand what the bacteria is doing, what the rennet does, what cooking the curds does, why you press cheese, how waxing works, what the aging environment should be like, the role of bacteria as the cheese ages. Read the instructions for your recipe ten times before you start the process. I buy my rennet, bacteria, molds, etc from Cheesemaking.com because I want to reward their hard work with my business. I use the calf rennet, but they sell a vegetable rennet that should work just as well. Get the liquid, don't get tablets. Mind the rennet strength, adjust the recipes appropriately. One of the hard things is finding quality milk. You'll quickly find out about the problems high temp pasteurization causes for cheesemaking. I'm lucky that my local supermarket carries fresh, locally produced milk. Go out of your way to avoid the mass-produced plastic cartons. As for equipment, I did a lot of DIY. I've really been meaning to write up another blog post about my homemade equipment, but I haven't done it yet. The "expensive" poo poo is the press and forms (often called "molds," but that word is overloaded in a cheesemaking context). But if you build your own, they're cheap and free, respectively. I made my cheese press out of some cutting boards and stuff from the hardware store for about fifty bucks. Compare that price to a pre-fab cheese press. I make forms out of old plastic takeout containers using scissors and a hot nail. You'll need at least a two gallon pot, preferably another to use for sterilizing. A good thermometer (you want a Thermapen). A large colander. Stirring utensils and a long knife for cutting the curd. A deep pot you can sacrifice for waxing, just leave the wax in the pot. I use a wine fridge I got for free as my aging "cave." I'm sure there's other stuff I'm forgetting. When I do cheesemaking days, it basically takes up the whole day. There's lots of downtime, but you need to be present to do the next step. You also will need some quick thinking when learning new recipes, as something will invariably fail to go according to plan. When I first made Camembert, I spooned the very soft curd into a form and let go only to have a bunch of the curds bloop out from underneath the form. poo poo. Yanked the form back down and stretched across the room to grab a plate and some cans of beans to weigh it down. Good save. Some of my first cheeses were a colby, a sage derby, gouda, cheshire. My favorite to make is Camembert, but I wouldn't recommend starting with a soft cheese. Edit: You can see my posts in the cheese thread for some more info about my particular setup. ColdPie fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Sep 27, 2015 |
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Sep 15, 2015 22:33
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You can also experiment with acid-set cheeses. It's just adding your favorite variety of acid (lemon juice, vinegar, ect) to hot (180f) milk and watching the magic happen. Bam, lovely soft farmer's cheese, or Paneer if you drain it and press it. Save the whey in the fridge for a tangy and refreshing drink after a hot day's working. http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/easy-fresh-cheese-recipe-farmers-cheese-paneer-queso-fresco.html Mind, this cheese does not melt. But it's a great starting point. And if you really want to get into cheesemaking, http://www.amazon.com/Liquid-Vegetable-Rennet-oz/dp/B013K76DQ4/ (I'm only just moving beyond farmer's cheese myself, once the goats start lactating, I'll be getting right back into it) ColdPie, I'm loving your blog cheeseposts, and would love an effort post on your cheesery if ever possible. Suspect Bucket fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Sep 16, 2015 |
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Sep 16, 2015 03:17
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seconding all the above. lots and lots of reading, lots of time investment. I've only made acid set cheeses, and attempted a fresh mozzarella - which failed pretty spectacularly. I brew, make ferments, cure my own meat, all that sort of thing - but have been hesitant to take up cheese making full-fledged, because I have read so many books on it, and feel like to get a product even close to what I can buy in a store would take hundreds and hundreds of hours of dedication. I feel this way about bread baking also. also good unpasteurized (or even pasteurized) milk is so hard to come by, I feel like you're fighting an uphill battle unless you either know a farmer or raise animals yourself. but to answer your question, if you don't want to use rennet, I'd just go ahead and throw in the towel. you're already using milk, so it's not vegetarian - and if you can't stomach a little bit of an animal's digestive enzymes touching your food, it's probably not worth the massive time sink, unless you're just wanting to enjoy it as a hobby and don't care too much about the result. (I sometimes forget that just trying things for the hell of it is fun, in my endless pursuit of food-perfection.  )that said, I haven't actually tried any vegetarian versions of rennet, so I am just being negative for no reason other than being mindphlux on an internet forum. 
mindphlux fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Sep 16, 2015 |
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Sep 16, 2015 05:25
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BottledBodhisvata posted:But I have a problem and that problem is rennet. Rennet is an enzyme used in a lot of cheeses that comes out of animal stomachs and my vegetarian girlfriend is not a fan of that.
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Sep 16, 2015 12:10
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Vegetarians are opposed to killing animals for consumption. Harvesting milk, eggs, honey, etc doesn't violate the vegetarian ethos. Harvesting animal rennet involves killing a cow calf to retrieve the digestive enzymes from its stomach, so vegetarians would want to avoid consuming it. Vegans are opposed to harvesting all animal products, including milk, but that's not what's being discussed here.
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Sep 16, 2015 13:09
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ColdPie posted:Vegetarians are opposed to killing animals for consumption. Harvesting milk, eggs, honey, etc doesn't violate the vegetarian ethos. Harvesting animal rennet involves killing a cow calf to retrieve the digestive enzymes from its stomach, so vegetarians would want to avoid consuming it. There are also vegan ethics that don't center on the fact that something is an animal product, but the process by which the product was obtained, if it was (to the degree it can be) consensual, etc. I knew a couple that would otherwise be considered pretty intense vegans, but they kept some hens in their backyard and had no qualms eating the eggs because the hens kinda just poop 'em out of their own accord. But that's neither here nor there and it's not what anyone thinks when they hear the word vegan so whatever!
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Sep 16, 2015 16:49
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Suspect Bucket posted:You can also experiment with acid-set cheeses. It's just adding your favorite variety of acid (lemon juice, vinegar, ect) to hot (180f) milk and watching the magic happen. Bam, lovely soft farmer's cheese, or Paneer if you drain it and press it. Save the whey in the fridge for a tangy and refreshing drink after a hot day's working. Yeah, I made paneer once and it's shockingly easy. If I recall correctly, the recipe I followed was basically: add some yogurt to scalding milk, strain the curds by hanging in some cheesecloth, then press under something heavy for a while. It's a really bland cheese by itself but I made matar paneer with it and that was delicious. I'm sure you could jazz it up by adding herbs to give it more flavor if you were looking to eat it by itself. Also I can't help but think it would be a fine substitute for queso fresco when crumbled atop atop a carnitas taco for when your GF is out of town or whatever.
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Sep 16, 2015 18:20
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mindphlux posted:feel like to get a product even close to what I can buy in a store would take hundreds and hundreds of hours of dedication. I feel this way about bread baking also. Nah, the very first cheese I ever made turned out great. Like I said, it's easy, just time consuming. Also you don't bake bread?? Man alive. I "cheat" and use a bread mix from Bob's Red Mill, but making bread is super easy especially if you have a stand mixer. It's very forgiving, and will turn out way better than most any store-bought bread. Way easier than curing meat. mindphlux posted:also good unpasteurized (or even pasteurized) milk is so hard to come by, I feel like you're fighting an uphill battle unless you either know a farmer or raise animals yourself. Unless you really trust your source and your own handling of raw milk, I wouldn't bother with unpasteurized milk. Listeria is no joke. It shouldn't be too hard to find good, local milk. The most important thing is avoiding ultra-pasteurized milk. Suspect Bucket posted:ColdPie, I'm loving your blog cheeseposts, and would love an effort post on your cheesery if ever possible. Thanks! I'll get to work on that equipment post sometime soon.
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Sep 16, 2015 21:48
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Cheeses made with vegetarian rennet are not uncommon these days because it's a lot easier to mass farm bacteria or algae or whatever the hell else uses the same enzyme for something, though in my experience the better the cheese is the less likely it uses vegetarian rennet.
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Sep 16, 2015 22:18
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I made paneer recently and then made it quite soon again, because it was easy and delicious. Mindphlux, read the bread thread and try no-knead bread! Super easy, brilliant effort:result ratio.
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Sep 18, 2015 19:15
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therattle posted:I made paneer recently and then made it quite soon again, because it was easy and delicious. I keep being torn between shahi paneer and saag paneer. The former is delicious and rich but a whole lot of work, the latter is more subdued but in spite of its simplicity saag paneer is difficult to get really, really good.
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Sep 18, 2015 21:55
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Force de Fappe posted:I keep being torn between shahi paneer and saag paneer. The former is delicious and rich but a whole lot of work, the latter is more subdued but in spite of its simplicity saag paneer is difficult to get really, really good. I did mutter paneer (because I love peas) and then my wife requested a tomato-sauce paneer curry. Both were really good (if I may say so myself). I always make dino.'s quick grated carrot side dish when I make Indian food; it's so drat good, so easy, and amazingly delicious given that it's four ingredients (5 with salt). Making paneer was terrifically satisfying. I made cheese! And it was good!
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Sep 18, 2015 23:14
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I tried making cheese but I couldn't get the thicking / curing stage to go well, it always ended up being sloppy like chunky butter milk..
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Sep 19, 2015 12:44
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shankerz posted:I tried making cheese but I couldn't get the thicking / curing stage to go well, it always ended up being sloppy like chunky butter milk.. Add a little more acid/rennet or a little more heat. That's not as hard of a curdle as you want for every cheese that I know of. You want the milk to squeeze most of the whey out in the curdling step.
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Sep 19, 2015 17:03
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SymmetryrtemmyS posted:Add a little more acid/rennet or a little more heat. That's not as hard of a curdle as you want for every cheese that I know of. You want the milk to squeeze most of the whey out in the curdling step. Thanks for the advice I'll try this again this weekend
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Sep 20, 2015 06:10
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gizmojumpjet posted:Yeah, I made paneer once and it's shockingly easy. If I recall correctly, the recipe I followed was basically: add some yogurt to scalding milk, strain the curds by hanging in some cheesecloth, then press under something heavy for a while. Gotta add a pinch of salt. And I do mean a pinch. A tiny bit goes a super long way.
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Sep 21, 2015 03:26
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This thread doesn't have any pictures in it and that's plain goddamned bullshit. It also prompted me to dig through my photo archives for my long-past cheese making session. Here's what me making paneer looks like. I'm going to describe what I did based on foggy memory and what I'm seeing in the pics I took while I did it. Here's me scalding a gallon of whole milk with a cup or two of yogurt standing by:  Shortly after adding the yogurt:  It gets grosser and grosser looking:   Eventually you dump in in a colander and start draining it:  Eventually you wrap it up in cheesecloth and make a sink-dick:  I don't appear to have taken any pictures of the pressing process but this is what I wound up with:  After a while or maybe the next day I cubed the cheese roughly and fried it in ghee? butter? canola oil? I can't remember:   Apparently I sauteed some onions and garlic and stuff:  And added in other stuff:  Look how I tried to make it look pretty. Look at that "pita" bread and that thin-rear end sauce. Live and learn. I was house-sitting when I made this so I was working with what I had. (Ok, no excuses, I just suck.)  Anyhoo, I think all of this meets a certain definition of vegetarian. This was fun and whenever I hear people talking about cheese it allows be to be like "Oh yeah, I can make my own cheese. People who buy things are suckers." 
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Sep 21, 2015 06:12
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I thought the vast majority of cheeses were made with recombinant rennet these days? At least in the US and Britain, it is like 80-90%. When you are getting into a more artisanal market, you are going to enrich somewhat for animal rennet but since rennet is expensive to make (in a lot of different ways that affect the top and bottom lines) and most small scale cheese producers are working with pretty narrow margins, I'd expect most of them to use non-animal rennet. Since labeling the rennet source isn't required, there will probably be some research necessary on your part, but contacting the people who make the cheeses you like (or their importers) shouldn't be too hard. http://cheese.joyousliving.com/CheeseListBrand.aspx Here is a quick list that should get you started. Making cheese is fun. I've only done it twice and never really got devoted to it but you should go for it if you can find a good source of milk.
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Sep 21, 2015 08:58
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Junket brand rennet, the kind I assume is most common in stores, labels itself as "vegetarian". I've only used it to make jibneh baida (white cheese kind of like haloumi or feta) and it was pretty good. I like homemade quark made with just milk and buttermilk too, that's even easier to make than rennet cheeses.
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Sep 21, 2015 23:06
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My wife made some farmer's cheese and some paneer last night. The instructions we followed said to add salt after the curds have been removed from the whey. In the interest of more even seasoning, what's wrong with adding salt directly to the mixture, perhaps even while the milk is coming up to temp? Would that somehow retard the separation process once you begin adding acid, or what?
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Sep 22, 2015 15:47
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The Midniter posted:My wife made some farmer's cheese and some paneer last night. The instructions we followed said to add salt after the curds have been removed from the whey. In the interest of more even seasoning, what's wrong with adding salt directly to the mixture, perhaps even while the milk is coming up to temp? Would that somehow retard the separation process once you begin adding acid, or what? I've accidentally added the salt prior to the cuddling process, and it really didn't ruin anything, bit the whey was undrinkable. The pigs liked it though. In farmer's cheese, it really benefits from adding the salt last. It tastes... Fresher? Less processed? Rather then homogenous salt taste, which can be nice, you get nice mellow cheese flavor then a kick of salt. I kinda like that better. I also use cherry smoked sea salt, and it really adds a bit of smokey punch.
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Sep 22, 2015 15:54
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I heard that if you have a foreskin and dont wash your weener good that cheese starts to grown in there, seems like a pretty goony way to make some cheese if you ask me OP! (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Sep 23, 2015 19:45
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I meant to add that I kept my whey and used it as the liquid for my bread baking. No waste!
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Sep 25, 2015 13:28
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therattle posted:I meant to add that I kept my whey and used it as the liquid for my bread baking. No waste! Do you find that it affects the flavor in a noticeable whey? I've got about a liter and a half of it that I need to use.
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Sep 25, 2015 14:27
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i often just stick a quart of whole milk behind the radiator with a hole poked in the top and just check back in a couple weeks.
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Sep 25, 2015 16:07
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The Midniter posted:Do you find that it affects the flavor in a noticeable whey? I've got about a liter and a half of it that I need to use. As someone who has spent hours and hours reading cheesemaking literature, fuuuuuuck yoooou and your "whey" puns. Everyone thinks they're so clever, then you read the same pun twenty times in a half hour. Christ.
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Sep 25, 2015 16:17
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ColdPie posted:As someone who has spent hours and hours reading cheesemaking literature, fuuuuuuck yoooou and your "whey" puns. Everyone thinks they're so clever, then you read the same pun twenty times in a half hour. Christ. Don't herve a cow.
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Sep 25, 2015 19:42
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ColdPie posted:As someone who has spent hours and hours reading cheesemaking literature, fuuuuuuck yoooou and your "whey" puns. Everyone thinks they're so clever, then you read the same pun twenty times in a half hour. Christ. No whey, man. These whey jokes are really rennetaining.
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Sep 25, 2015 19:48
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When you have cultured gold, you need to milk it for all its worth.
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Sep 25, 2015 19:52
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See? We have a gouda time here in GWS.
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Sep 26, 2015 02:23
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Ok so your advice worked. First batch came out decent... any idea on something to throw in to make it spicy but won't gently caress up the curing / hardening stage.
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Sep 26, 2015 06:49
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shankerz posted:Ok so your advice worked. First batch came out decent... any idea on something to throw in to make it spicy but won't gently caress up the curing / hardening stage. Chili oil, or hot peppers. Roast the peppers or not, it's up to you, but dice them finely and add them right before you add the rennet. The huge amount of fat in the cheese means there's lots of lipids for the capsaicin to bind to, so be careful with how much you add. I've never made cheese with peppers, but Google says that'll work just fine, so I say go for it. I can't think of why it would mess with the coagulation or solidification.
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Sep 26, 2015 08:03
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So, where do people get their water buffalo milk, yo? I'm thinking of trying to hook myself up with the farmer in Sebastopol but figured there might be an easier way than cold calling some poor dude.
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Sep 26, 2015 09:50
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Shbobdb posted:So, where do people get their water buffalo milk, yo? I'm thinking of trying to hook myself up with the farmer in Sebastopol but figured there might be an easier way than cold calling some poor dude. Cold call the dude. Leave a message at the beep, they'll get back to you whenever they feel like it. That's farming!
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Sep 26, 2015 13:06
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shankerz posted:Ok so your advice worked. First batch came out decent... any idea on something to throw in to make it spicy but won't gently caress up the curing / hardening stage. Personally, I'd go with dried peppers. Roast some guajillos and chile de arbol, chop them, and mix em in with the solids.
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Sep 26, 2015 14:12
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So . . . Things got out of hand with the farmer from Sebastopol. He died due to totally natural auto-erotic asphyxiation. Building a relationship with his widow is . . . not an option.
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Sep 27, 2015 04:28
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Things are weird out in windmill country.
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Sep 27, 2015 05:26
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At least he went out like a total rockstar.
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Sep 27, 2015 09:17
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I hope y'all like effortposts, because boy do I have a doozy for you.
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Sep 27, 2015 17:09
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