Milk kefir cheese

I 🤍 cheese. A life without cheese is missing something. That's why I find it particularly awesome that you can easily ferment cheese from milk kefir at home!

Cheese without rennet

I like to make cheese quite straightforward from fermented milk kefir, without the addition of animal or vegan rennet.¹ To transform milk into milk kefir, you need milk kefir nodules, a culture of special bacteria and yeasts.Ideally, you can have other fermentistas give you a few, get hold of them at a swap meet or culture group. You can also buy them, there are several professional suppliers.

Before you start making cheese, you should already have some experience with fermenting your own milk kefir. I wrote down an instruction and a few tips and tricks for you.

Cream cheese from milk kefir

This cheese is not only easily made and delicious, it is also the base for other homemade cheese specialties. That's why I recommend you start your home cheese-making with this relatively simple cream cheese made from milk kefir.

The cheese will turn out better if you set up the milk kefir batch warmer. This is because temperatures of 20 to 28 °C cause the bacteria to ferment lactic acid, and the higher lactic acid content causes the whey to separate better from the curd. The curds are used to make cheese. The whey is by no means just a by-product, but the second, equally wonderful ferment, and can be used in an extremely wide variety of ways. For example, as a base for lemonade carbonated by fermentation - my favorite use.

To achieve the optimal consistency for further processing into cheese, leave the finished milk kefir to ferment at room temperature for a few more days after you have sieved out the grains. You can observe how the whey clearly settles. This is a good sign that the kefir is ready for further processing.

INGREDIENTS

PREPARATION

Water and wring out the muslin cloth, it should be slightly moist, and place in a strainer over a bowl. Then put the kefir in the muslin cloth, tie it in a knot and hang it over the bowl to drain. I by now have a hook on my kitchen cabinet for this, but you can also knot the cloth around a wooden spoon and place it over the bowl to drain.

Salt cream cheese

After 12-16 hours, remove the drained cheese from the cloth and salt to taste. David Asher recommends 2% salt in his book The Art of Natural Cheesemaking, which I think is a good guideline and I pass on this recommendation.

If you like the consistency, you can finish the cheese right away, otherwise hang it up for another 6-8 hours. The salt removes more water from the cheese and makes it firmer.

Then it' s just a matter of deciding whether and how to flavor the cream cheese. For example, depending on the season, I like freshly grated horseradish. Or dill, chives, figs, honey, parsley, olives, capers, hyssop, sorrel, pepper. There are no limits to imagination and taste.

Sometimes just a pinch of salt is just enough.

For a festive table, a sumptuous brunch or the picnic in the countryside, I love to form balls from the cream cheese and roll them in herbs or nuts.

Uses for whey

Please don't just throw away the whey that was in the bowl when you first drained it! You have so many ways to use it. My hit list for the use of whey:

• Homemade probiotic and naturally carbonated lemonade.
• Starter culture for fermented mushrooms kkakdugi kimchi style (adapted from Pascal Bauder).
• chilled as a refreshing thirst quencher after sports
• pureed with fruit as a healthy smoothie
• Tonic for face, neck and cleavage
• Fertilizer for plants, even the lawn loves whey

Stored in a bottle in the refrigerator, it remains active for about 2-3 weeks.

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¹ By the way, why wouldn't I use the vegan rennet? It is made using an enzyme produced through the use of genetic engineering. There are no long-term studies yet on the effects on humans of vegan rennet.