The Art of Plant-Based Cheesemaking: How to Craft Real, Cultured, Non-Dairy Cheese (Urban Homesteader Hacks) by McAthy Karen

Author:McAthy, Karen [McAthy, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Published: 2017-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

Culturing coconut milk with kefir grain. CATHERINE DOWNES

We added the reserved grain to a small amount of coconut milk with a small amount of maple syrup, in order to store the kefir culture for a longer period of time in the refrigerator.

Frequent culturing will still result in a kefir product, but the grain will become very small and integrated into the beverage.

Now, for the other kefir efforts. The cashew and almond milks we made ourselves, in order to avoid the extra stabilizers and to be able to control the amount and kind of sweetener that we wanted to use. The cashew milk was a success, but did take a little longer (36 hours) to culture to the same degree of tanginess or sharpness as the coconut milk. It produced a thicker substance than the coconut milk, more like a very soft yogurt. The kefir grain, however, was much smaller, and we were not able to culture subsequent batches of cashew kefir as quickly as the coconut milk.

For the purposes of being able to maintain a supply of cashew kefir, we decided to culture cashew milk using coconut milk kefir as a starter. This worked well, and is still the method I use when making larger batches of cheeses.

The almond milk was more challenging. Of the milks, it took the longest, and had the least pleasant taste. This could be a result of the culture struggling with the sulfur compounds in almonds. We found that adding 2 tbsp maple syrup to 1 liter almond milk gave the kefir grain more to feed on, and resulted in a better tasting product.

As with the cashew kefir, if I am making large batches of cheese that require almond kefir starter, I start my almond milk kefir with starter from one of my coconut milk kefir batches. The coconut milk kefir is a highly consistent performer and requires little prodding to become acidic; therefore it works well for acidifying other mediums. It also has the longest shelf life — more than 30 days, refrigerated in a glass jar, and fed a little coconut sugar or maple syrup approximately once a week.

Lastly, with respect to the coconut water and water kefir tests, these took longer than all of the milks. The weaning process started with higher amounts of maple syrup (our sweetener of choice, though some people use raw cane sugar), with less and less in subsequent batches until we found the minimum we could use and still get the results we were seeking. I will often use water kefir as a starter in cheeses if I am concerned about allergies to coconut.

Since the coconut milk kefir is one I find quite easy to produce and replicate, and use frequently, I am including two processes for making it.

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