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Fermented milk from Kazakh pastures of Xinjiang

Ayran (Kazakh artisanal soured milk)айран

Ayran in Xinjiang is a Kazakh artisanal fermented milk that sets to a curd whose hardness varies from sample to sample. The drink that Caucasian and Turkish cooks call ayran is a different product, katyk or suzma diluted with water, called shalap in Kazakhstan.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Ayran itself. Its own sources do not record how it is made, so the steps and scenes below are those of Ayran, the closest documented fermented milk ferment, shown as a guide to the method, not as a record of Ayran.

Short entryFermented milk

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo source gives amounts for Kazakh ayran.
Milk[kuerman2023]

Total time across the steps of Ayran: 3.3 h

Start
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40–90 °C

What changes: The milk is heated to 90 °C, then cooled to 40–42 °C

Step 1 of 5 · steps of Ayran
Heat the milk
Time
15 min
Reported
Temperature
40–90 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
S. thermophilus
Lactobacillus bulgaricus
Lactobacillus
Lactococcus
Lactobacillus helveticus

Output: hot treated milk, cooling to setting temperature.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

heat kills most milk bacteria

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Ayran in Xinjiang is a Kazakh artisanal fermented milk that sets to a curd whose hardness varies from sample to sample. The drink that Caucasian and Turkish cooks call ayran is a different product, katyk or suzma diluted with water, called shalap in Kazakhstan. Lactobacillus and Lactococcus and Lactobacillus helveticus, Limosilactobacillus fermentum and Lactococcus lactis do most of the fermenting.

What makes this one different

Xinjiang Kazakh ayran is a coagulated fermented milk. The drink called ayran in Tatar-Uzbek and Caucasian cooking is katyk or suzma diluted with water, which Kochetkova et al. say is called shalap in Kazakhstan.

Related ferments

Variants

  • ShalapThe drink of katyk or suzma mixed with cold water, called shalap in Kazakhstan.
  • Caucasian ayranKatyk or suzma mixed with cold boiled, spring or mineral water; samples from Karachay-Cherkessia and Stavropol had pH 4.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Kochetkova and colleagues trace ayran as a drink to Tatar-Uzbek cooking and the time of the Golden Horde; in Kazakhstan that drink is called shalap.

  1. [kuerman2023] Kuerman M., Wang R., Zhou Y. et al. 2023, Metagenomic insights into bacterial communities and functional genes associated with texture characteristics of Kazakh artisanal fermented milk Ayran in Xinjiang, China, Food Research International, doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2022.112414 (abstract)paper
  2. [kochetkova2022] Kochetkova T.V., Grabarnik I.P., Klyukina A.A. et al. 2022, Microbial communities of artisanal fermented milk products from Russia, Microorganisms 10(11):2140paper
  3. [wp-ru] Wikipedia (ru), Кисломолочные продукты (outline only)wiki