it's possible but it's impractical, i'll explainwhite belt wrote: ↑Mon Feb 15, 2021 10:01 pmI must know, have you tried making your own whey protein? My understanding is it's just a step further from what you've been doing with yogurt. I saw one video of someone making it from yogurt and another video of someone making it from ricotta cheese.
I think the only additional thing you will need is a food dehydrator to dry it into a powder, but I'm seeing that piece of equipment come up a lot in my homesteading research.
I wonder if it would be economical to do this compared to buying protein powder? I consume large quantities of casein (45 grams) and whey (25 grams) daily, so it might make sense for me. Even with bulk buying the cheapest options, I'm probably spending >$1 a day on just protein powders.
there are 2 whey types: sweet and sour. sweet whey is a byproduct of cheesemaking and it's the stuff that gets powdered, flavors doritos, etc.
straining yogurt produces sour whey. the protein is the same but the sugars in the sour are reduced and you get lactic acid instead. this i think isnused tomfeed pigs but also often get tossed into the sewers?
i only get about... 1qt per week, max. so i just drink it or cook with it--bread, rice, pancakes, japancakes, oats, etc. also use it to semi-ferment cabbage instead of making full sauerkraut. dehydrating this would entail a lot of energy for a small amount of protein.
i've tried making ricotta too, and you get just a tiny amount.
but cheesemaking otoh is an industrial process, and the whey is a massive byproduct, and it's better tasting than sour whey, so that's where it makes sense to process because customers won't drink it. if there was a market for bottled whey they would just bottle it and call it... something.
ever try whey lemonade? tasty stuff.
you could just drink milk which has both whey and caseine and skip the industrial separation and dehydration. if lactose is an issue, or if you want the probiotics, just keep an ongoing ferment. a gallon of milk has... 123g protein? so if you drink 1/2 gal/ day it's the same as the powders.
if you prefer to dose and don't want to ferment you can separate by making paneer (add some acid to boiling milk)
whey powder is cheap but in my recollection caseine is expensive and tastes/smells pretty bad. you could either drink it as tasty milk or buy lowfat deli type mozzarella which is basically caseine without the whey or the fat or the lactose. (i prefer full fat mozz, but bodybuilders have their limits).
eta: about 80% of milk protein is caseine 20% is water-soluble globulins (whey) so you can do the math
eta2: in my keto days i ate a lot of part-skim low-moisture mozz and swiss cheese from walmart. i think swiss had even more protein per oz, check it out. the bigger the block (2+lb) the better the deal. i think it was cheaper casein than milk itself? been a while so not sure.