Episode 4: Fermented Dairy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunost

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y561JaCuVjc 

www.cheesemaking.com

Alison’s Quiche recipe: 

Evan’s Sous Vide Yogurt Recipe:

1. Pint or Quart jars
2. 180ºF for 30min to denature 
3. Cool to below 110ºF
4. Add yogurt starter/leftover yogurt to each jar
5. 110ºF for at least 12 hours
6. Take jars out and cool
7. Eat!

old.reddit.com/r/yogurtmaking/

old.reddit.com/r/cheesemaking/

Naan making: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zogvMiPpQrs

Find us on Instagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/jewishfermentationpodcast/ 

Our Website:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1789715

Transcript

Evan: 0:00

Welcome to episode four of She Brews, Hebrews, a Jewish fermenting podcast, where we hope to discuss all things home brewing and fermenting, both biblical and modern from a Jewish perspective, including beers, Meads, ciders, wines, breads, pickles, cheeses, and much, much more today we are talking about about Cheeses yogurt and fermented dairy. I'm your host, Evan Harris. And with me today as always is my co-host Alison Shay.

Alison: 0:22

Hey there, how are you doing?

Evan: 0:23

I'm doing pretty well yourself.

Alison: 0:26

What to drinking today?

Evan: 0:27

So I'm drinking another local brew, following from the last episode, where I had some polygamy Porter this week. If you haven't guessed what state I'm in now, I'm having some Utog, son of a peach hefeweizen. a fruited hefeweizen.

Alison: 0:41

That's a fun onewhats a hefeweizen?For Those who have never heard of one before.which I think is many people

Evan: 0:49

So a hefeweizen is a type of wheat beer, originally found in Germany, tends to be mid alcohol for beer. Very light, very refreshing takes frequently has some floral and fruity notes to it. It's very popular now, at least from local breweries to add fruit to it. there are other ones that add, blueberry and, apricot.

Alison: 1:09

Sounds tasty. I'll have to see if my local places have it.

Evan: 1:14

They probably won't have this one, but there's another one they'll have otherwise you just have to visit,

Alison: 1:17

Yep. We'll get there.

Evan: 1:18

you know, eventually as the world starts to become more normal After holidays.

Alison: 1:23

oh yeah.

Evan: 1:24

So what are you drinking?

Alison: 1:25

I am drinking? a good old fashioned port, nothing particularly interesting. I couldn't even tell you the brand. I got it at the store. What I am, what I do have in the oven right? now, what I will be having for dinner is I think a little more, relevant to today's, episode. I am making cheese quiches loaded with all sorts of different cheeses.

Evan: 1:46

Yeah.

Alison: 1:46

Yeah. If anybody wants recipe, I've got a great recipe for quiche, but not the topic of

Evan: 1:53

Another topic today. I want to at least see how they come out, because that sounds tasty.

Alison: 1:57

Yeah. Well, I didn't have condensed milk on hand, but I did have a whole bunch Also relevant to today's episode. I asked my roommate to pick up some milk from the store. And she got ultra pasteurized milk. I was intending to use the milk to make cheese. But you can't do that with ultra pasteurized milk because it denatures the proteins in the milk. I was trying to figure out something to do with it. So I attempted to make condensed milk with it. It seems somewhat condensed. It's not quite like the store-bought stuff, so hopefully the quiches has come out as normal.

Evan: 2:30

Okay. So is there, is this a new batch of milk that, was also ultra-pasteurized.

Alison: 2:34

no, this is the same batch of milk.

Evan: 2:37

Okay. So you probably, that's a decent man. You probably ended up making evaporated milk. Condensed milk has added sugar.

Alison: 2:45

yeah. Evaporated milk, not condensed.

Evan: 2:48

Okay. I ended up, making yogurt after the last episode.

Alison: 2:52

Yep.

Evan: 2:52

so I'll talk about some of my successes, a little later, but first let's, get into a little bit the history

Alison: 2:57

In case you haven't figured it out by now? The topic of today's episode is fermented dairies. I'm sure we'll probably do further episodes on it in the future, but today's just, like with the breads and everything else and overview of, basics of ferment.dairy

Evan: 3:15

exactly. We'll probably do some more overview episodes as well, and other items as we get to them and go more in depth as we learn more ourselves and hopefully communicate what we learned to you.

Alison: 3:24

Yeah,

Evan: 3:24

But so, in Judaism there clearly is a long history of, fermented dairy, as well as just dairy in general, given that the two biggest categories in kashrut are milk and meat.

Alison: 3:36

Just a little bit of a hint right there.just

Evan: 3:38

a little bit,Yeah. Which is funny because, what's the joke No, Jew is over five. 10 has perfect eyesight and is lactose tolerant.

Alison: 3:46

Yup. And I hit the jackpot there because I am five, six have lactose problems and have terrible eyesight

Evan: 3:55

Whereas I have normalized sites and six one have no problem with lactose. All it costs me was my pancreas,

Alison: 4:02

trouble with a different sort of sugar.

Evan: 4:05

exactly. But lactose of course is a kind of, mostly non fermentable sugar. When you're talking about beer brewing people add lactose is non fermentable. It make things sweeter. But from the archeological record, production of cheese dates, batch, about 7,500 years. And the oldest archeological evidence is in what is now Poland. Surprisingly.

Alison: 4:26

Did not know that.

Evan: 4:27

Yeah. There is a lot of, I mean in modern Greek cuisine, there's a lot of cheese. As well with FEDA and halloumi, but in the ancient Mediterranean as well, tons of dairy. And there are plenty of times in the Torah and Mishnah where we talk about dairy and people eating it.

Alison: 4:44

yeah. And I mean the, the types of cheese that you mentioned, they're holding me and feta if I had to guess, I would say those would be some of the really old ones, because they are very basic to make. They are the kind of thing where if somebody made that type of cheese by accident, I would totally not be surprised.

Evan: 5:06

yeah.

Alison: 5:06

Because those are, those are what are called fresh cheeses. So halloumi and, and pheta, you do the basics of the cheese making, and then that's pretty much it for your fermentation. So the very basic thing you do to make a fresh cheese is you add something to coagulate it, usually rennet and that separates the solids from liquids in the milk. And this is, very much dependent. There are other factors that pan play into this, the pH, basic cheese like paneer or ricotta. It, you can make without even using what's called rennet, which is an enzyme that it's a coagulant, it's a set of enzymes that coagulate it. You can do it without it, but this is what makes, I would say the majority of cheeses, some form of a rennet. And there are different types of rennet there are three main ones, microbial, vegetable, and animal and animal is really the one that would make something not kosher. Because it comes from the stomach of a calf or, I think, I think there's also porcine rennet. it.

Evan: 6:16

there is porrennetented some cheeses in Italy. Use it.

Alison: 6:19

Yeah. Obviously I haven't never eaten it. But most of the time, what I work with is, is a microbial rented or a vegetable rennet when I'm, cheesemaking, they're easy to find on the internet, really easy to get your hands on, but if you're a vegetarian and you just want an easy way to check for cheese is, is vegetarian or not is see what type of rennet it has. If it's microbial or vegetable you're in the clear if it's animal probably not.

Evan: 6:46

The other thing is if, if you're a vegetarian who doesn't keep kosher and a cheeses kosher by definition, because of the separation of meat and milk you have, it will be, vegetarian.

Alison: 6:56

Yes. So veggies out there, easy way to identify cheeses. And I have met vegetarians who will check, like I am not the only one standing in the store who will check a label for that. I have seen other people do it just to find out whether or not something's vegetarian. Kosher label is good for a lot of things like this. I used to go to a vegan, food market when I was living in Florida. And, the store there sold a whole bunch of different kosher wines because if a wine is kosher, most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time it'll be vegan. Occasionally they use some other types of filters, but you know, there's not going to be an animal filter in there.

Evan: 7:38

that that's correct. Most of the issue with that would be and beers as well though. It's increasingly uncommon, Guinness even changed their recipe a few years ago. They would use a fish derived, a filter to clear it so that your beer is clear, not cloudy.

Alison: 7:53

I've also heard of using egg whites for that

Evan: 7:55

So that, that is true. And that's how, the same methodology gets you. if you make like a tomato which is a delicious dish. But one of the things with, all this cheese, the only way before pasteurization to save dairy was fermentation.

Alison: 8:11

Otherwise, you know, you've got like three hours of drinkable milk and then after that you're going to get sick from it. So you want,

Evan: 8:19

you'd be lucky if you had ice to refrigerate it.

Alison: 8:22

So the old school way of, you know, how people would get this rennet in there is they would put it back into a stomach. And one of the theories on how cheeses were first made. Was somebody gets some milk, goes on a bit of a journey. And has their milk stored in, some sort of sack or Bladder. So you got it. You're going on a journey. I don't know. Maybe you're hopping on your camel to go for a trip or whatever you put your milk in there. And when you get to wherever you were going, you come up with this, Milky liquid. and some solids there that, Hey are kind of tasty. You like this.

Evan: 9:04

Okay.

Alison: 9:05

And that's, I mean,

Evan: 9:07

Yeah,

Alison: 9:07

that's the theory on early cheese. It makes sense.

Evan: 9:10

I mean, cheese, I looked a little through the, fermented foods in the global era. We talked about a few episodes ago and every single fermented milk product with one or two exception is either effectively cheese yogurt or sour cream.

Alison: 9:23

Yeah, And of course there are variations on this. You could talk about, kafir, which is basically the same as yogurt, but uses different types of microbes, but they're all the same thing at the end of the day. They're all pretty much similar. Are you souring the cream, which is, I mean, sour cream, cream cheeses are done this way, where you inoculate, the cream, there's you can inoculate the straight up milk, which would be making a yogurt or a kafir, and then you can inoculate. Or just curdle, the milk. So you're actually physically separating out the solids from the liquids of some sort. And that's the cheese. And if you're wondering what something is, how you would define something, that's what you would say. Is it just the cream? Is it, the solid, separated from the rest of the milk or is it the milk itself?

Evan: 10:16

Exactly. And I mean,

Alison: 10:18

they are all very tasty.

Evan: 10:20

they're all, they're all very tasty. And within cheeses, of course, there are tons and tons and tons of varieties. Charles, DeGaul is, once to have said that. How am I supposed to govern the country with a different cheese for everyday?the

Alison: 10:34

very France.

Evan: 10:36

That it is very French and in a lot of countries, in Europe, especially they have designations of protected cheeses that are culturally important and they are sort of stronger than a copywriter that this cheese must be made in this area with this procedure. Sure.

Alison: 10:51

Well, that makes sense for a lot of reasons, not just cultural cheeses, going to taste different depending on how you treat it. But I would say how you treat it is almost secondary to what the milk is Two people can make what they think of as the same cider in two different locations,

Evan: 11:14

Yeah.

Alison: 11:14

but when your base material isn't the same, that's going to make a huge difference. What Evan's drinking right now is his Utah specific brew. That's not something that you could make with, I don't know. I don't assuming this stuff is from Utah. It's not something you could make somewhere else. What goes into milk in a different location is going to change the flavor of the milk. And if you want to go and find your local farmer, and get some fresh milk, whether it's goat or sheep or, cow, whatever, you're going to see that depending on what the cow was eating, even depending on what season, if the cow is eating the same food at different seasons, there's going to be a variation in the milk, and that's going to cause differences in flavor of the milk itself. It's also going to cause differences in the way, whatever you're inoculating it with is going to eat it and break it down.

Evan: 12:11

Yeah. Supposedly even between time of day of milking.

Alison: 12:15

That's wild. I w you know, actually I'm not, that's not overly surprising. I'm guessing the quality of a cow's milk varies, depending on like, at what, point they are in a digestive

Evan: 12:25

so one of the specific ones that I know of, even though in America, it means absolutely nothing is parmagane. So in Europe for something to be labeled as Parmesan in America, you didn't label anything Parmesan you've had. I've had soft cheeses labeled Parmesan.

Alison: 12:43

That's ridiculous. I'm judging.

Evan: 12:45

Parmesan is supposed to be a hard cheese that is frequently graded. It should crumble. There should be visible crystals of MSG in it, which is of how it's aged.

Alison: 12:55

Yeah.

Evan: 12:56

It is delicious there.

Alison: 12:58

to be noted, we were talking about, We were talking about sugars earlier. What happens with age cheeses is when it's inoculated, whatever microbes you've added to, it are going to eat sugars the same way. Anything else is going to eat sugars. And during a fermentation and you are going to end up with, well, aged cheese, you're going to end up with something that no longer has lactose in it. So my fellow lactose sensitive people, you can eat those super aged cheeses with no problem as much as you want, because there's no more lactose.

Evan: 13:31

Yeah, exactly. But with Parmesan, it has to be made in the area of Parma and red Reggio. It has to be made with the milk from the previous nights milking and that morning's milking, that's it, there's a very specific rennet, and there's all sorts of other specifications about how it has to be aged and is very specific. That is not to say that there are not people in America making very good, hard aged cheeses that are very similar to Parmesan. They just shouldn't be called parmesan

Alison: 14:00

Or they shouldn't, you can call it like a Parmesan type or whatever parmigiano Reggiano

Evan: 14:06

Yes. If you find a block of cheese that has parmigiano Reggiano on it and a label that says AOC associates, original control, I believe is what it stands for. It is the Italian designation that says this is certified real Parmesan. If you can find that it is delicious

Alison: 14:26

I wonder if that's when I have, we get the big blocks from Costco,

Evan: 14:29

Costco, I don't know if Costa always has the big blocks of Parmesan. They have a different, very similar cheese. That's also Italian and blanking out of which one it is.

Alison: 14:37

Hang on. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Yeah. Kirkland, signature, parmigiano Reggiano. con sorry. Consorzio permit Johno Reggiano cut and packed in Italy. Guarantees, authenticity, protected designation of origin. It's got all of the, it's got all of the labels, but the stuff, the Kirkland signature stuff from Costco, as it turns out is real parmigiano Reggiano.

Evan: 15:11

In an unsurprising turn of events, Costco has yet again, provided wonderful products.

Alison: 15:16

Oh yeah.

Evan: 15:17

So it varies in every country, what it is. And in Switzerland, technically they have three different ones, in Portugal, it's DOP, but it's controlled. Origin basically says, this is from here in this place. if we talked about olive oil at any given point, or we talked about some of the wines of Europe, especially port which Allison's drinking right now. Just there's a lot of foods with that. If you see that, I honestly think it means it is a symbol of quality because it, the standards are very high in Europe.

Alison: 15:45

Yeah. Bordeaux, champagne, as well. Very location-specific

Evan: 15:51

cognac.

Alison: 15:53

cognac. I do like a nice cognac. If it's labeled champagne, it is supposed to be from the champagne region. I believe there is a similar designation with Prosecco.

Evan: 16:05

Prosecco. Is Northern Italy? Portugal has both port and moscutal. Sherry has a very similar designation. The first one actually was port dating back to the 17 hundreds.

Alison: 16:16

I think you told that you told me this story. I don't remember if you were counted on the podcast previously. But it was specifically sold to English sailors who just kind of decided they liked it

Evan: 16:28

So yeah, port,

Alison: 16:29

ones to drink it.

Evan: 16:30

So port, became very popular because of England Francis, various wars. And so it was good wine.

Alison: 16:37

No, everything works.

Evan: 16:39

Yeah, pretty much a lot of European history. Some sit down to that. Because it was fortified, it would travel the longer distance from Portugal to England. Whereas the distance between Calla and Dover in France is not very far. It became very popular in England at the biggest port houses in the city, depending on who you ask is either called Porto or Oporto, along the dura river in the dura valley in Portugal, the largest port houses actually were all owned by English people.

Alison: 17:05

That's classic English, but also it's like when I sat on the pre I think it was the previous podcast. You're going to hear me say this a million times, but food history is world history.

Evan: 17:16

Absolutely.

Alison: 17:16

is, you know, this is the development of a new food. That is a by-product of. Major events in world history of England and Francis chronic fighting against each other.

Evan: 17:30

Absolutely. And the reason that the designated, origin, sticker. So any time you open up a port bottle, it's got the little sticker tape across the top. That is that's the seal. The reason that came about is that there was a lot of fake port, being sold as real port in England and the perceived quality was going down. So they made this a designated origin to control it. And now they're very similar things across all of Europe. Now enforced by the EU and various trade agreements. Some of it is technically enforced by the treaty of Versailles,

Alison: 18:00

That's hilarious.

Evan: 18:02

Yeah, there, there are a ton of funny stories about that. But so we were talking about the fresh cheeses and the various types of fresh cheese. A lot of the time seems to be set with, acids, especially semi soft cheeses or soft cheeses.

Alison: 18:15

Yeah. A lot of what you're doing when coagulating and cheese has to do with the pH balance. So if you get it to the right place, you can do this with lemon juice, you can do this with whatever kind of vinegar that you've got sitting around. I use citric acid. Usually I have like a container of it. But you're getting the pH to the right point. And then, you heat it and you lower the temperature and that will also help separate out the curds in way. And they're not going to develop the same kind of textures that they will if you add, runrennet to them. But it will separate the milk solids from the way, one of the reasons this is often done is because, just using rennet to coagulate, the cheese is not going to get every single last bit of milk solids out of your. It's not, you're going to end up with residuals. So the reason why ricotta exists pretty much, or historically is ricotta was used after making a batch of cheese, you have all this way. You want to get every last bit out of this. So you add a little bit of vinegar, a little bit of lemon juice, a little bit of whatever acid you've got on hand, and that'll really help you get the last little bit of milk solids out of there. And you can use that and way is great for a lot of things. It's not, I mean, there's nothing bad about it. It's it looks kind of funny. It's kind of like this yellowish clear liquid, You can use it for all sorts of things. It's great for baking breads with it's great for using as a base for stocks, it's got a bunch of flavor to it. That like is kind of reminiscent of the base milk, but not exactly. But it's got all sorts of sugars and proteins in there that didn't come out with the cheese that are great for adding to other foods. So I would say don't toss your way right away. See if there's anything else you can do with that first?

Evan: 20:12

So you're saying don't toss your way away.

Alison: 20:14

Nope, I like that.

Evan: 20:17

Yeah. So ricotta, if I recall, literally means reboiled or reconstitute.

Alison: 20:21

Yep. Cause that's all you're doing. You're taking your excess away and you are reboiling it.

Evan: 20:28

So one cheese I found it first in Minnesota is similar, but it's a scandanavianvariant, and I kind of want to make it, instead of just re boiling it and adding a lemon or the such, what they do is they also add some cream back in and simmer that down to like one 10th of what it was. So you'd get all these really caramelized flavors. It's like this it's this block. The, the most common available one is called ski queen, but the category is Gjetost.

Alison: 20:55

hey evan

Evan: 20:56

Yeah?

Alison: 20:57

Can you send me your recipe for this? Because I want to make it.

Evan: 21:00

I will send you both a link to what it looks like and a recipe, because I also want to make it. We'll add some links to it in the show notes, because it is really interesting, at least in my opinion, it's got this caramel-y flavor. It's firm, it's like a semi-soft texture. And it's this block like this brown block basically is how it comes.

Alison: 21:21

For anybody who's interested in trying out cheesemaking, there is a website that I use. It is the very easy to remember cheesemaking.com. And that's where I get most of my cheesemaking supplies from, all of the products that they sell will have labels in the site, whether or not something is kosher or not. They have actually a bunch of different types of kosher on it. They have all sorts of different products that are kosher or labeled as vegetarian. If you want to use them, I would strongly recommend checking them out. Cause they have all sorts of really easy to follow recipes and all of the equipment you're going to need for cheesemaking.

Evan: 21:57

A lot of, homebrewing shops also have cheese making supplies. So if you have a local Homebrew and shop you, like you can check those out as well, but I'll definitely make sure to include, cheesemaking.com in the show notes. So you can click on the link.

Alison: 22:09

Yeah. Brewing sites do have that. Again, we are not sponsored. When I do like about cheesemaking.com is that, you can pick a type of cheese that you want to make. And they'll have recipes and instructions, just information on how to make the cheese in general and the list, every single thing you need and have it available for you. I know brewing sites do this too. But this is the handy-dandy version for cheesemaking.

Evan: 22:35

Absolutely. I'm not saying not to use them because I'm looking at their website right now. There's some things I want to try over here. It's more, just plenty of options that you have. But they've liquid thistle rennet in researching this episode, I saw that in Spain and Portugal, there's some places that use thistle rennet, which I'm just very curious about

Alison: 22:53

Yeah. I'm in a bunch of different home cheese making Facebook groups again, Facebook and Reddit are really good resources. I know this is not a place that, you know, people usually say, oh, go check out Reddit. But seriously, there are communities that you can find on social media that are working on stuff that are producing things at home. And people have been doing it a long time. They're really knowledgeable and they're really willing to help you if you have any questions or any issues with anything. So social media sites are really good places to say, Hey, I'm a beginner. Can somebody give me advice? Can somebody help me out with this? And there's just a whole lot of people willing to help.

Evan: 23:35

Absolutely. At least for some of the subreddits, if we can we'll link to the Facebook groups, we'll add some of those in the show notes as well. But so in addition to the acid set that cheeses we've of course discussed rennet, but there are other things you can do with the cheeses aside from having fresh cheese,

Alison: 23:47

You can age it.

Evan: 23:48

you can age it,

Alison: 23:49

An aging is what does that thing where I was talking about before, where it eats up all the lactose and then those of us who are, heavily dependent on our lactate pills can eat it without any problem. So you can do all sorts of things to cheeses. You can, it can be a fresh rind, which means basically nothing has been done to it, It's been inoculated and, and allowed to build up on the outside. You can have a salt washed rind. A lot of time a salt washed rind will have. I mean, it'll be pretty salty. They often develop kind of an orange yellowish color on the outside. It's very tasty. Some of them are very tasty. Not all of them. I happen to like salt wash rinds. They can be covered in Ash or they, there can be Ash running through it and that's going to, let a lot of flavor soak in there, people at herbs to the outside people and all sorts of things to the outside. One that you've probably seen if you've pretty much ever eaten cheese they had waxed to the outside, and that'll help contain things at all.

Evan: 24:51

Yeah, but there are waxed cheeses, like Gouda and Edam. Both of which I like.

Alison: 24:56

Yes. Also, if you want to know what a Gouda, a big Gouda or an edam would look like, go look at those little Babybel things, but imagine it being like 400 times larger.

Evan: 25:10

Edam you can mostly hold. I can hold with one hand Gouda. You

Alison: 25:13

to this huge Gouda is massive.

Evan: 25:17

been to the Netherlands. They're massive. But before you get to the agent process, when doing some research, I found, a few things. So you've got processes like cheddering which traditionally was just laying the curds on top of each other until they squeezed out the water from the selves. But of course, nowadays we use industrial power.

Alison: 25:32

I actually have, some little presses that I got off of cheesemaking.com. Actually I didn't, my mom sent them to me as a present off of cheesemaking.com. but they're basically a series of cups that fit inside each other, that will press, and they have holes in them to drain water out. And it's just a fast and relatively easy and hands-on process for pressing, cheeses. So you can do that pretty easily. Another one that Evan I'm sure was about to mention that is my personal favorite type of cheese to make. It's a lot of fun. It doesn't always come out the first time. So if you try it, don't be discouraged from making mozzarella is a great process of heating and stretching. The curds. So you basically just keep heating and kneeding it and then you stretch it and stretch it and stretch it. And eventually it produces. If you've ever held a ball of mozzarella, you know, you can peel it and you end up with layers and stringy bits and you can tell it's been folded and folded and folded and stretched. And that's what produces that very distinctive kind of grain pattern to it.

Evan: 26:36

Well, not long ago I was talking with a chef and his comment on making mozzarella was you stretch it 1, 2, 3, and you're done. That's what his recommendation was. I really do want to try and make the mozzarella now. I don't think cheese making is going to be so impacted by the elevation I live at, but they make cheese in the Alps, so I'm not too concerned. But so the last one of the pre aging steps that I found at least while researching was washing it. And this is actually what's used on a Gouda and edam, that we talked about a little earlier. It's not putting the wax on, it's just washing the curds with water, and helps generate a little bit more mild flavor.

Alison: 27:11

Yeah. there's other things that can be done to them. Like brining I mentioned earlier, which would be, feda us a good example of this. You make a soft cheese and then you put it in a brine, I guess that's really straight forward. and it adds, you know, that very distinctive flavor to it. And I mean, people do this with, with bocconcini, bocconcini are just tiny little mozzarella balls. They're very tasty. They are excellent for deep frying into mozzarella stick things would strongly recommend.

Evan: 27:45

though, as Charles mentioned, there are tons of cheeses. So we clearly are not going to get to every one of those types of variations today. but hopefully we've given you some new information on, background, different types of cheeses and some, resources for you to go try them out, but even easier. As we've mentioned in the last episode, little, and now I've done are yogurts.

Alison: 28:06

Oh, Yeah. yogurt's a fun one. I don't know if I pushed Evan to do this, or if he just heard about me making yogurt and really wanted to try it, but it's fast. Well, not that fast, but it's relatively fast process. There's very little active time involved. It's very easy and it is very tasty. You can do all sorts of stuff with your own homemade yogurt. So how did you do it?

Evan: 28:31

I actually made my yogurt in the Sous Vide. So the first time I did it, I actually took a pot out, brought the milk up to 180 Fahrenheit. let it cool down to under one 10 added some leftover yogurt. Mixed it in, put that into little jars, put that in the sous vide overnight at one 10. But 180 is a temperature you can get to on my sous vide. It's not that hard. So I've actually made it twice now. So on Instagram I posted earlier, what is in my sous vide? Well, guess what, it's the second batch of yogurt.

Alison: 29:02

Okay.

Evan: 29:02

And so what I did is I took some large jars. I used quart Mason jars, put in first, just milk, whole milk. Brought it up to 180. I kept it there for about 30 minutes, just to make sure that the entire volume inside the jar was up to temperature. Let it pool down to one 10, added some leftover yogurt for my previous batch, mixed them all together, mixed it all in sealed the jars, put it at one 10 overnight. Again, took them out, put them in the fridge.

Alison: 29:31

Really easy. I actually, I would even argue that I do it even easier way than Evan.

Evan: 29:38

But I like sous vide.

Alison: 29:40

yeah, most ovens are pretty good at insulating. So I heat the milk up. You let it stay warm for a little while. I don't remember the exact temperature offhand. But you heat it up. You let it stay there at that temperature for a little while.

Evan: 29:57

180 was the temperature I read online.

Alison: 30:00

180 Fahrenheit. Yeah. Sounds about right. It's not 180 Celsius. That's not right. What am I thinking?

Evan: 30:05

That'd be impressive for, a water-based liquid.

Alison: 30:08

No, that would be a mess because milk boil. So for like nobody's frigging business.

Evan: 30:13

That's why I said it would be quite impressive.

Alison: 30:15

Oh yeah,

Evan: 30:16

Yeah,

Alison: 30:16

you were, yeah. I don't even know it that you would, you would hit disaster long before you passed 110, even that wouldn't even happen.

Evan: 30:26

wouldn't, it wouldn't happen. Thermodynamics. You're going to boil the entire volume.

Alison: 30:29

Well, I don't know, because additives into the liquid can change the boiling point.

Evan: 30:35

No, both change the boiling point, but it's mostly suspension, not necessarily direct to additive. So a lot of the things are suspended, which is a different type of physics. So they would come out of suspension and be left as a sludge,

Alison: 30:49

True and disgusting.

Evan: 30:51

and discuss. Yes. I also do not want to do the math behind. What pressure would you need for it? Not to boil at 180 Celsius.

Alison: 30:58

Yeah, let's

Evan: 31:00

Let's not do that. Don't use a pressure cooker.

Alison: 31:02

don't do that. Well, you can use a pressure cooker. A lot of them will have yogurt settings.

Evan: 31:06

don't use one to boil milk.

Alison: 31:09

Yeah. So what I do is I raise the temperature of the milk up to 180. And I let it stay there for awhile. so this is the proteins denature properly. And then let it cool down. And once it gets to like one ten-ish, actually I, do it a little sooner. I do it like 1 15, 1 20 I'll pull out a little bit of the milk will add in some of my starter yogurt, mix it all together to make kind of like a slurry or whatever. And then I add it back in and you wanna hold it. Around one 10, for like eight to 12 hours. So what I do is I leave it in the pot cover with, with just a towel or whatever, just a kitchen towel will do the job, heat your oven to like 200 and then shut it off and let it sit. If you're a baker, you're probably familiar with this technique for proofing bread. You don't want it hot. You just want the oven warm and you can let it stay warm. Just shove your pot covered in the towel in there. It's not, it's just warm. And you can shut the oven and let it sit there for eight to 12 hours. And the next morning, because your oven, you know, will keep it not hot, but just like a little warm in there. You should end up with a yogurt.

Evan: 32:22

Yeah.

Alison: 32:22

If it's not completely perfect after eight hours, then like start to preheat it, shut it off. You'll be fine.

Evan: 32:31

yeah, I now have a gas powered oven here, so I was a little worried, well, no, but I, if I'm to be leaving, if it's just, it's very well insulated so I could turn it on, heat it up, turn it off, put it in. And that would work. But the Sous Vide is very good at keeping things at specific temperatures for however long you want.

Alison: 32:49

Yeah. When I mentioned about pressure cookers earlier is a lot of them will have a yogurt setting and like what Evan did. But instead of using a sous vide, you just put the milk into this pressure cooker, click the lid on there, put it on the yogurt setting and it'll hold it right at that one 10 temperature that you want it to be. And it'll yogurt-ify on its own.

Evan: 33:09

There are a ton of variations as well on yogurt, but most of them are okay, we've added this fruit or this flavor,

Alison: 33:15

Yeah.

Evan: 33:17

but yogurt and variations are made all around the world can be found in the article. We mentioned a while ago and with all kinds of different milk, as well as frozen.

Alison: 33:24

Yes. Something that I happen to love, we mentioned kefir earlier, which is made the same way. Yogurt is trader Joe's. I don't know if they still carry it, but they definitely used to carrying this goat. Kefir.

Evan: 33:36

Cool.

Alison: 33:38

Yeah, I used to add honey to it and like on its own, it's very goatee, but you had a little bit of honey in there and stir it in there and that's good top it with, some like homemade granola

Evan: 33:48

That sounds good. I'm trying to think. Is there anything else really on yogurt that we know of to discuss aside from people should make it, you have all the tools.

Alison: 33:56

Yes. One thing that I always say about fermented dairy, I've probably said this to Evan, because he's got all of this yogurt. If you've got some sort of fermented dairy, you've got all sorts of complex flavors and microbiotics going on in there. If you add them to your baked goods, they will be very fluffy. I promise you, It does such a good job at making baked goods. Nothing does a better job at making baked goods, fluffy. I mean, other than maybe yeast, but fermented dairy

Evan: 34:29

oh

Alison: 34:30

really worth it. If you're, if you're looking at milk versus buttermilk, do the Buttermilk I'm telling you it'll make a difference.

Evan: 34:38

Buttermilk is lower fat people think it's the other way round, but buttermilk is lower fat, but it holds all those great cultures in it. I haven't baked up here at all because I'm at 8,100 feet above sea level. So still, haven't gotten to figuring out how to bake, but my favorite naan recipe, which I make non instead of pita is every time I've attempted pita, it has turned out bad. And most of the time I try and make naan it turns out more like pita.

Alison: 35:07

I did try making pita once and it didn't go well, I usually make roti, which works very Well, for me, but I've never made naan, but one of the about naan that I'm sure Evan is bad to bout is that traditionally made with yogurt.

Evan: 35:22

yes, my, my favorite recipe is made with yogurt bycarb and yeast.

Alison: 35:28

Oh. that's just a party.

Evan: 35:30

Oh. It's very flavorful. I will, put the video. I learned it from, in the show notes.

Alison: 35:37

That sounds right.

Evan: 35:38

Yeah. You can, obviously, you can'tfor kashrutcan't use it with a meat pro with anything you're making with meat, but it is a delicious

Alison: 35:47

Yes. But also your friendly, local vegetarian is probably going to have an okay time with that

Evan: 35:52

yes. That's the way it was less for you, Allison, more to, our listeners. But we hope that this episode has inspired some of you to try some more fermented.

Alison: 36:04

Yes. Dairy fermentations can be really easy. And I genuinely think you can have a lot of fun. Fermenting dairy with a kid on hands. I can't see a kid not having fun, stretching a mozzarella. I can't see a kid not having fun. You know, doing a science project overnight.

Evan: 36:28

Exactly. I mean, I love science fairs. Okay. So

Alison: 36:31

Yeah. It's fun and wholesome. Tasty fun for the whole family.

Evan: 36:37

And clearly these have been going on for thousands and thousands of years. You're probably not going to mess up. We live in a society where the biggest risks would be using contaminated milk, which especially for yogurt if you use ultra pasteurized, it's not a problem.

Alison: 36:53

Yeah, don't use ultra pasteurized milk for cheesemaking.

Evan: 36:56

yeah,

Alison: 36:56

Don't do that. I, it's not, that's probably the biggest area you're going to bump into. It's going to make your cheese not soft and creamy. You're going to end up with, it's going to get crusty. That's pretty much all there is to say about that. Just regular pasteurized is okay. You're best with low pass dressed. Well your best with un pasteurized, but it's the states here. Folks. But strongly recommend. Just try and make yourself a quick batch of recut and see how much fun you have.

Evan: 37:28

Though in, I think it was Wisconsin, they allowed for unpasteurized milk at one point. And some of the legislatures celebrated by drinking unpasteurized, milk, and most of them got sick from it. So

Alison: 37:39

love that story.

Evan: 37:41

I mean, it's also Wisconsin, America's dairy land. Lived in the Midwest, Michigan, Minnesota for many years, so I got a lot of the cheese.

Alison: 37:48

Oh yeah. It's nothing. Nothing just like really good cheese

Evan: 37:53

Yeah.

Alison: 37:53

there really isn't. So I feel like to end this off, I have a very important question for you. I don't know if you have an immediate answer. I do have an immediate answer for this.

Evan: 38:05

Okay.

Alison: 38:05

What is your favorite cheese?

Evan: 38:07

Oh, What is yours? I do not know. What is your favorite cheese?

Alison: 38:11

my favorite cheese? is called It's a French cheese, that is only made in like January, February, because that's when you know the grazing on the appropriate foods. It's aged a while. But it's just a really funky cheese. I am pretty sure it's completely in pasteurized. But it's just a complex, soft, gooey delectable cheese.

Evan: 38:40

Yeah. The, the front there, you said it was French, correct?

Alison: 38:43

It's French.

Evan: 38:44

There are a lot of those soft aged French cheeses that are delicious. I mean, Bree is the most common cam and bear is very similar, but it's seen as hoity toity. There are a lot of very common ones that are regional that are delicious. I actually had a locally made similar cheese the other day from park city Creamery. That was delicious.

Alison: 39:05

Yeah. is, specifically talking about specific locations. it's called mountain door and it is, here's the specifics, basher and Mount door Hills from Switzerland on the border of France, near the mountain door traditionally made with the winter milk of the same cows that produce Gruyère in the summer.

Evan: 39:27

Oh,

Alison: 39:28

This cheese is only available from October until April making it all. The more precious the cheese must be made from cows munching on straw and fodder. Once outside degrees at pasture, their milk is used for larger Alpine cheeses. And then there are Swiss regulations. They have to be produced over a certain elevation. Again, this is, this is common with those highly specific cheeses where they'll have all of these rules and regulations about what the cow eats, where it's made the elevation in this case, what time of the year it's made. So it's delicious. If you get your hands on one, I would strongly recommend

Evan: 40:06

will try and get my hands on one. When it's in season. I do love the Alpine cheeses as well. I love most cheese I've had, who am I getting at? Like most cheese.

Alison: 40:15

there is one exception. For me on cheeses. I would say I also like almost all the cheeses I've had. I love your really strong stinky cheese. I am really a cheese lover here. The one thing I dislike, I don't like smoked cheeses just don't like it. I don't, I've tried many of them and every once in a while, if it's, if it's covered in Ash, that's not what I'm talking about.

Evan: 40:40

Yeah, no, you're talking about, like the smoked Gouda

Alison: 40:42

I hate smoked Gouda. I just, I just hate smoked Gouda,

Evan: 40:47

interesting. I mean, I liked, I like a smoked cheese, but I liked the smoky flavor in general, so

Alison: 40:52

a fresh Gouda, love a fresh Gouda, but Yeah. So feel free to drop us, a note about what your favorite cheeses and if there's anything you'd recommend, we taste.

Evan: 41:05

Leave us a review with your favorite cheese in it.

Alison: 41:08

Yes, we would love to hear from you. We love to hear if there's anything that you're trying out or would like us to try out, would recommend. We try. We are always open to feedback. And

Evan: 41:20

Yeah,

Alison: 41:21

yeah, that's pretty much it.

Evan: 41:22

we still don't have a sign off.

Alison: 41:24

we still don't have a sign off. if you have any ideas for a sign off, if you would like to hop on and chat with us sometime about whenever you're up to give us a shout, you can reach us at Jewish fermentation podcast on Instagram

Evan: 41:38

exactly.

Alison: 41:39

podcasts are found.

Evan: 41:40

Yeah. I want to say wherever podcasts are sold, but they're not sold.

Alison: 41:44

Now, this podcast is non-sponsored. We just really liked some things.

Evan: 41:49

If you'd like to sponsor us, let us know.

Alison: 41:52

Or if you'd just like to like send us cheese,

Evan: 41:54

Yeah. Send us cheese more than

Alison: 41:58

I don't need a sponsorship. I just want more cheese.

Evan: 42:01

I hope everybody has enjoyed this episode and we will, see you in two weeks.

Alison: 42:05

Yeah. Happy fermenting.

Evan: 42:07

Happy fermenting.