Tried to Make Hemp Cheese… This Was Not the Plan

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]It shreds like chicken. Tastes like it too. Hello friends and not yet friends.

[00:00:04]Welcome back to Mary's Test Kitchen and Willlet Cheese, the series where I take plant ingredients and apply cheese making ideas to them, mainly in the form of bacterial cultures and time. Today I'm challenging the omega-3 rich super seed, hemp hearts. That's hemp seeds with the hulls removed. I keep going to this brand cuz it tastes mild, nutty, and pretty good all the times I've tried it. Like when we made bouncy delicious hemp heart tofu. Did I just get ripped off? That was 451 grams. 451 grams. And I'm going to do a taste test. You get a mild nutty flavor at first and then there's a bit of bitterness. The more little dark speckles there are, I think the more bitter it's going to be. And the other thing is you want to taste for rancidity. Any foods that are naturally high in fat can go rancid pretty easily, whether they're stored improperly or they're just stored for a long time. So, I'm making sure that these are fresh tasting before I try to cheese them.

[00:00:58]Because hemp hearts are so soft, I'm not going to soak them. I'm just going to blend them straight with water. That's 240 g.

[00:01:07]I added 600 g. I'm feeling a little lazier today, so I'm going to take a chance blending them as smooth as possible so I don't have to strain out the fiber. Remember when we cheed pistachios? I did two versions. One including the fiber, one without. and the one without fiber turned out to be a better, smoother texture. However, the one with pulp developed more interesting complex flavors. Speaking of interesting flavors, how about a raw hemp milk taste test? It's bitter. All right, now it's tasting more like the black sesame level of bitterness. Maybe even a little more.

[00:01:43]It's actually a little bit warm, too.

[00:01:45]But the mouth feel is perfectly smooth.

[00:01:48]So, I think it's ready. And that's going straight in the pot.

[00:01:53]Then the remainder in for another minute. It's been over a minute. A minute 20, a minute 30 maybe. We'll add this. I'm going to add a little water to the jar. Just get all the goodness.

[00:02:06]It's so smooth. I feel like it's ready to be cheesed. Don't you? In dairy cheese making, milk is coagulated using animal-based or vegetable renant at a much lower temperature compared to plant-based milks. And so bacterial cultures are added at much the same time. From what I've read, plant-based renant is not effective on plant-based milks because it's actually designed for dairy. But we don't need it cuz hemp milk has the power all on its own. Oh yeah, can really see it now. It's also a little bit like doughy smelling, which is a little out of nowhere. It's getting so thick.

[00:02:48]Oh shoot. Oh shoot. Oh shoot. Oh shoot.

[00:02:51]Not great.

[00:02:53]I didn't anticipate that. I feel like adding a little more water just to dilute this to thin it out might help with that spitting. I don't know. But I'm going to turn the heat back on and then grab a lid real quick to act as my shield. Power is on high. Adding that water would have brought down the temperature. So it's at 150 right now.

[00:03:15]It'll take a couple more minutes to get it back up to simmering. This happened with our whole pistachio milk, too. Now I remember. I should have known. Trying to change angles as a onewoman show with a bubbling pot of this stuff.

[00:03:31]Um, this is not nearly as dangerous as the pistachio. I think adding that extra water helped. All right, I'm going to lower the heat a little bit. Uh, let's get it down to 7 out of 10. I'm going to pop the lid on and let it simmer for a few minutes just to maximize the curd extraction. It's been 6 minutes.

[00:03:54]Let's take a look. I'm telling you, it smells very hemp seedy in here and also a little doughy. Also a little bit like ammonia. So, that's not something I expected. What can I say about this? It looks nicer than the pistachio pulp version.

[00:04:13]Let's give it a taste. Um, first the whey.

[00:04:17]It's interesting that it's still so milky. It's like really thin hemp heart milk and it's a little bitter. Now for the curd.

[00:04:29]It's actually kind of giving like overly scrambled scrambled eggs. And it's not very bitter. I feel like the the bitter part has dissolved into the milk and the curds are not holding on to bitterness.

[00:04:39]It's a little bit like the extra firm tofu from Sunrise, how it's a little bit grainy. We are way past the temperature that would be suitable for the friendly bacterial cultures we'll be adding. So, I'm putting the pot outside, stirring every so often to help it cool more effectively.

[00:04:56]It's been about a half an hour and I think we are at the right temperature.

[00:05:00]Just going to double check. 103 107. So, what I wanted was between 100 and 110.

[00:05:07]So, this is perfect. I'm going to add the inoculent. Now, our probiotics today, I'm going to use the same probiotics I've been using for most of the episodes. Maybe I'll use four. So, that should be a minimum of 60 billion colony forming units or CFUs.

[00:05:26]Mix that in first.

[00:05:29]I'm a little concerned that there's not very much liquid in here and so that will affect the distribution of the probiotics. Right. I'm almost tempted to add a little bit of warm water, but I'm not going to this time. Ink will be okay. We'll find out tomorrow. Anyways, third one.

[00:05:50]Fourth.

[00:05:54]And then, like previous, I'm going to transfer this into mason jars because I need this pot for other things.

[00:06:11]They sat in the oven with just the oven light on. I manually turned it on and off to regulate the temperature to around 38° C all throughout the rest of the day until around 9:30 when I went to bed. Then it cooled down to around 24° in the morning. 6:00 a.m. I put them in the fridge. I gave them the taste. It tasted pretty sour. So, I put it in the fridge just to pause everything until now. And now it's time to see how the texture has changed, how the flavor has changed.

[00:06:44]It feels the same. It hasn't gotten like firmer. I'll give it a taste. This is the curds and wayey in this jar. It hasn't separated too much. Whereas in this jar, it's more distinct. It's very hemp seedy. The nutty flavor is really strong. And there is sour like a bright sour note from the fermentation. The lactic acid fermentation. I'm going to taste the other one. Well, first the way. Ooh, it's bright and sour with a bit of um not just a bit of a bitter aftertaste. It is bitter at the aftertaste and it's making my mouth water as well. The curd part curd with less whey saturated into it. See if that makes a difference. No, they're the same. It'll be interesting to see how that changes as these age after I press the curtains. I've got my sterilized cheesecloth, which I just steamed and let dry. Pour in jar number one going in.

[00:07:41]Jar number two.

[00:07:48]That sounds that sounds so funny.

[00:07:53]Okay, this is heavy.

[00:08:03]I'm trying to squeeze out some of the liquid here. Um because I'm not sure this is going to fit in my tofu press.

[00:08:14]I also don't want to force it too much.

[00:08:16]As usual, I'm going to use my favorite tofu press. It's got a spring in here.

[00:08:22]And also when you turn the knob, it pushes the whole thing down.

[00:08:30]It adds more pressure. Anyways, it's been previously cleaned and then sprayed with vinegar um and let dry to reduce any surface bacteria and reduce the chance of anything going wrong.

[00:08:45]First thing is getting in there.

[00:08:49]Come on, you can do it. I believe in you.

[00:08:55]Maybe we need to make two separate blocks. I don't know if we need to go that far. No way.

[00:09:04]I mean, there's lots of way. There's no Okay, fine. Fine. I know. I know what I must do. I still don't think I've taken out enough.

[00:09:16]Right.

[00:09:23]Nope. There's no way.

[00:09:29]Just poured off a bunch more whey. Let's see if that helped.

[00:09:35]Not really.

[00:09:37]Taking off more curd.

[00:09:44]Oh, come on.

[00:09:49]No, do it. I refuse. Yes.

[00:09:55]In your face. Limitations.

[00:10:01]So, this is going to go in the fridge after I wipe it down.

[00:10:05]As for this leftover way, there's quite a lot.

[00:10:10]What is that? Like 3 fifths of a quart maybe. Let's taste it on its own.

[00:10:18]lemony distinctly hemp zidy. The sourness is either counteracting the bitterness or I'm just not noticing it as much. It's like not as potent, not as strong now. Not sure what to do with that. So, I'm just going to cap it.

[00:10:32]24 hours later.

[00:10:36]Start with the way taste test.

[00:10:40]Sour. kind of reminds me of soy way actually. What about the way over here?

[00:10:46]Ah, this way is much more clear looking.

[00:10:50]Yeah, it's pretty much the same, but there's like a interesting light cucumber-l like flavor to it as well, which I hate actually.

[00:10:59]Yeah, this is not the most enjoyable way I've ever had. Grassy and kind of beanie in a not a good way either though and sour. I'm not sure what to do with this.

[00:11:07]Obviously, it's full of probiotics. The flavor, I'm not a fan. It was almost kind of like the scent of onion skins.

[00:11:15]Soybean, but sour and not in a good way.

[00:11:19]Completely different from how it started out as just uh see what we have here.

[00:11:28]Oh, it's firm and bouncy like tofu, right? Let's get it on the scale.

[00:11:33]It kind of is soft in some places and kind of crumbly too. 658.

[00:11:41]And just so very conveniently, we have some bits that we can taste test right away. It's kind of meaty. It's kind of chickeny actually texture-wise. Like really dry chicken breast. Oh my god.

[00:11:52]Really? It is. If we get some salt involved, I'm pretty sure it's going to taste very chickeny. H I actually think that was the flavor in the way that I couldn't identify that I didn't like.

[00:12:04]Because this is so dry, I almost feel like I think I'm going to do a salt brine this time. I made this salt solution like in February, so that was quite a while ago. Um, it's fully saturated. You can see salt crystals at the bottom that haven't absorbed or dissolved into the water. That's how you can tell it's fully saturated. Just going to pour it in here.

[00:12:27]I don't know if I have enough. Hopefully I do. But pop it in here. Oh. Oh no. Oh no.

[00:12:37]Oh no. Maybe this wasn't the greatest idea. It's crumbling. Look at all those crumbles.

[00:12:44]How am I going to get this out?

[00:12:47]All right, so this was pound and a half.

[00:12:49]Last time we did 15 minutes, flipped and another 15 minutes in a saturated whey solution. I actually don't think I'm going to flip it. I think I'm just going to s keep it like this for 30 minutes. The previous version was half the size. So, I think 30 minutes just like this is going to be fine. All right. This has obviously absorbed quite a bit of liquid cuz it's popping off the top here. It's It's taller than when it went in. Ooh, it is crumbly. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. Perhaps the salt brine was not a good idea. Check that out. All right.

[00:13:30]All right, let's get it on here just for handling purposes while I get our sushi mat out.

[00:13:38]This was steam sterilized.

[00:13:41]Just going to do like this.

[00:13:51]So, don't love that this whole thing crumbled off, but Not going to worry about it. It's going in the dehydrator. While you likely won't see dairy cheeses aged in a warm dehydrator like this, it's been a thing in plant-based cultured cheesem. The protective rind forms quickly, and warmth encourages the probiotics to flourish. Since I've compared both with and without in our first episode, it's become standard operating procedure on the series. This is 46 hours later, and it's dry to the touch. The crumbly edges are actually very firm. The middle a little mushy.

[00:14:31]Our recent successful delicious sesame cheeses got 3 days in the dehydrator.

[00:14:36]So, I'm going to mirror that and put it back for one more day. Whoops. Somehow the time has gotten away from me. And it's been 2 days. Let's see how our whole hemp heart cheese has developed.

[00:14:48]>> I don't like the smell. It's giving a play-doh.

[00:14:52]It's like kind of fruity, but kind of like it's not good. It's not good, you guys. Other than that, it's lost a bit of weight and is ugly as sin. But ugly doesn't mean bad. And not smelling delicious is also not a cheese sin.

[00:15:08]Let's see inside.

[00:15:10]Like a cement wall. Not even a nice one.

[00:15:13]My friends, between the dryness, the terrible greenish gray color, and the Play-Doh odor, my hope is quickly wasting away. But I can't give up on hemp's potential. So, I'm putting them in a container to age in the fridge.

[00:15:28]Sticking to the procedure that's worked so well for white sesame, black sesame, peanut, and pistachio. Even our two soy experiments, while they didn't turn out cheesy, they did evolve very intriguing flavors. I gave it as long as possible until 16 days later. Well, hello friends and not yet friends.

[00:15:49]It is April 14th. That means it's been 2 weeks since this went in the fridge. I'm not exactly looking forward to this.

[00:16:02]But let's get into it anyways. Look how ugly that looks. I mean, it was ugly going in, ugly coming out, and it's still Oh, feels a lot firmer than before. I I don't know. That was two weeks ago. I don't remember what it was before. Oh, it smells like salad dressing. Smells like It's like, you know, that potato salad that you meant to bring to the picnic, but then you forgot it in the car and then like kind of has a bit of a petrolness to it. Disgusting. I do not want to get into that, but I will for you. Here's the thing, though. There are plenty of dairy cheeses that look and smell horrible. And yet, there's a market for them. So, let's get into it.

[00:16:48]Oh, by the way, like the edges, crumbly, crumbly. Not good. Let's Let's get a proper slicer from the interior.

[00:16:57]It's a rough cut. The inside smells just like the outside. Aka not good. Okay, I can smell more of like the the natural hemp seed. And you know, hemp seeds aren't the most at least raw hemp seeds are not the most delicious smelling seed in the world. So, do with that what you will.

[00:17:15]Look at me trying to slice this the thinnest slice in the world. All right, I'm going for it. Salty, hempy, a little tangy, not too tangy. Ooh, and there's like a buttery milky note at the end. No longer tastes like chicken. Maybe a little bit. And now it's like so crumbly that it doesn't I don't know. It's not as chokey as before. I feel like now that it's gotten as dry as it has, it's actually better. It's like a powdery dry that kind of falls apart in your mouth and um doesn't try to choke you. Unless perhaps we go for a thicker slice. Maybe that's Look at me going for a second slice.

[00:17:56]might must not be that bad.

[00:17:59]Okay, I need a blow of water now. Would I bring this out as like my prize cheese at the exotic vegan cheese tasting party? No. Would I even have it at the vegan cheese tasting party?

[00:18:13]Also, no. But we've had so many other delicious cheeses that this is just like hemp hearts are too expensive to be like, "Oh my god, I'm going to on purpose make my whole hemp seeds into cheese." Unless you have a YouTube channel dedicated to testing these things out and you just bought two new bags of hemp parts to figure this out, I want to blame leaving in the pulp cuz remember the hemp tofu turned out so good. Okay, but first let's get this stuff out of the way. Um, I'm going to weigh what we have. 385 g. I feel like I've been pretty harsh on this, but it's only because the previous video with white sesame was so so delicious. And then the black sesame was also so stunning as well. And the pistachio, okay, the soy was like a mixed bag, but at least it was interesting. with this. I feel like yeah, it tastes like aged hemp seeds and it doesn't smell or look particularly good. Moving on. Back in the fridge, which by the way is just crazy full right now. The bottom we have pistachio cheese. Then we have soy. Then we have the hemp that I just put in. Then we have more soy. Then we have black and white sesame. Like my fridge is not that big, you guys. Like I'm running out of space. When I finally hyped myself up to try this again, I started off the same way as round one, blending the hemp parts with tap water, but this time only 20 seconds, so it wouldn't be too impossible to strain out the fiber.

[00:19:52]Raw milk taste test.

[00:19:57]Sweet, nutty, and then that grassy almost petrol-like flavor takes over.

[00:20:03]Slightly irritating, actually. There's no time to ponder. Let's get the heat on and this milk bubbling. As it heats up, the aroma of hemp milk gets stronger and the solids are starting to stick to the spatula. Even though there's no visual separation on the surface yet, until about 175 180° F, as if by magic, but really by the interactions between the protein and mineral content, fluffy curds are separating from the whey.

[00:20:35]These are proteins linking up, clumping up, some lining up to form strands. Not a lot of it, only a little. What does it feel like? Soft and fragile, stretching only a bit. It breaks apart at the slightest tug. So, I try to be even more gentle to find out the extent of the pull.

[00:20:58]Let's see if more forms as it boils.

[00:21:01]More of it is aligning. Still not a large ratio of the curds, but this is more noticeable than when we made hemp food together all those years ago. Some sections that really line up. And Ooh, that's a little ah it's so hot though. It's a little stretchy. It's stretchy, but only to a certain point. It wo shredding like it's firm and meaty.

[00:21:35]It's shredding like chicken. It kind of tastes like chicken, too.

[00:21:42]It literally tastes like meat. Like, wait a second. It literally tastes like chicken, guys.

[00:21:49]My friends, that was the most realistic vegan chicken I've ever had.

[00:21:53]Intentionally or unintentionally, this flavor is very much plain boiled chicken. What will we get next? I guess like and subscribe if you want to be in on it. But back to reality. But not all of the curd does that, right? Like this bouncy stuff. Absolutely none of that texture. None of it at all. Let's give it a taste. Wait, the softer curd tastes distinctly like a chicken in a bad way, though. I'm going to turn off about like 60% of you guys watching. But you ever make like chicken soup on the stove? I remember back in the day, let's just say sometimes chicken was simply boiled in a pot and you know that foamy stuff that comes up. I feel like this curd kind of tastes like that. Not as offensive cuz it doesn't have those like livery flavors. Maybe it does actually. Maybe it slightly does. So disturbing imagery aside, just think of the possibilities if we can extract this flavor for our nefarious plant-based purposes.

[00:22:53]Anyways, the heat is too nefarious for our probiotics. So, let's let this cool.

[00:22:58]About a half an hour later, what do we have here? A tofu skin that's not solid at all. So, quite inconsequential.

[00:23:07]The temperature is about 105° F. Exactly what I'm looking for. Warm, but not too hot for the probiotics we've been using all along in this series, of which, oh no, I only have two left.

[00:23:22]This could be a problem. Only 30 billion CFUs, half the amount we usually use, but we're both here and I don't have any alternatives handy. So, despite this being possibly the worst mistake of my life, I'm moving ahead with it. Did I think about making a smaller batch to match the ratio. Only in hindsight, my friends. The rest of the process followed our first round, but this time my dehydrator was free to be the incubator steady 98° F for 24 hours until the next day. The first thing I notice smells greasy and not good. H my friends, I don't want to. How about you taste it for me? Oh, it is sour, but it's also disgusting. Like the oil is so thick in the mouth that it just coats your mouth right away and it's so well oily. And hemp oil, not the best in my opinion. I don't want to do this, but I will for you. Kind of chewy. And then there are more dense bits to it, too.

[00:24:23]Overall, extremely bland chickeny flavor while being sour, aka disturbing AF. And I'm not so excited to get it in the tofu press, but we must must drain first.

[00:24:39]The curs are much more broken down than before, but I won't worry about that too much.

[00:24:46]Got to get it in my favorite tofu press.

[00:24:52]Drain more away.

[00:24:54]Add more pressure.

[00:24:56]Drain again. And place this in the fridge overnight.

[00:25:02]The next day, the sun is shining, and I'm way more optimistic. First, as is tradition, let's pour out the whey and have ourselves a little weey taste test.

[00:25:13]How has it changed?

[00:25:16]Sour. Sour in a slightly boiled chicken-like flavor. So, the boiled chicken flavor plus sour combined creates disturbing. I don't like it's not super creamy, so less disturbing.

[00:25:30]So, theoretically, it could be used as a chicken broth base alternative, except that it's sour, but then if you were making dill chicken soup, that would actually be good.

[00:25:41]It's not oily. I mean, there's a little oil, but it's not like greasy feeling like it was. It still has like a slightly sulfury smell. Like, it kind of reminds me of the smell of mayonnaise.

[00:25:51]Eggy mayonnaise. Oh, it's really giving eggs. It's very sulfury. Ooh, crumbly.

[00:25:59]We got bouncy. We got It's like It definitely has like an eggy quality to it. It's very eggy actually, but in a overly bo hard-boiled, stinky kind of way. To be honest, I don't love it. Oh, it's so crumbly. It's cracking all over the place. All right, let's just weigh it. Salt it. Get it over.

[00:26:21]478 g. So, let's say 4.7 * 2. It's like 8 9.

[00:26:31]Looks like we need 9.5 g to make 2%. So, perfect. Before I start on salting, just going to do a little taste test from these crumblies here. It's meaty but piecy. And it kind of It's not quite melt in the mouth, but it does have a creamy quality to it. But it's kind of like cooked ground meat to be honest.

[00:26:52]Yeah. Like a really bland maybe like ground chicken.

[00:26:57]Oh. with a with a nutty background.

[00:26:59]There is like a nutty hemp seed background to it. It's not grassy.

[00:27:02]There's no like petroleum type law on clipping like smells. So, there's that.

[00:27:07]Finally, it's time to salt. With the 2% salt, I'm sprinkling all the sides, patting it into the surfaces and into the crevices as best I can.

[00:27:19]afterwards. I think it's too delicate to go straight on the bamboo mat. So, I'm going to give it couple hours on parchment before I flip it. That's the plan. Into the dehydrator set at 98° for 24 hours.

[00:27:34]Except, my friends, it's been 45 minutes and my entire place smells like butt.

[00:27:41]So, we're not doing it. We're just not doing it. I'm so sorry if you were hoping because I feel there is potential here. However, I just cannot have my home smelling like butt. It really does smell like expired mayonnaise.

[00:27:56]Should I like just try it?

[00:28:00]Nice. Good. Stinky piece like this.

[00:28:05]Yeah, that is stinky. It tastes just not offensive though. Now that it's warm, the sulfur odor is so strong it's given eggs. Kind of powdery dry eggs rather than chicken. Maybe we'll attempt this in the summer when we can have the dehydrator outside.