# Rennet



## Montanarchist (Feb 24, 2005)

I've got a pleasant situation coming up. Two years ago we had only one fresh doe, who provide just enough milk for milk. Last year we had two fresh does, but with building the homestead we milked very infrequently, just enough for our milk needs. This summer we will have at least five fresh does and I'm looking at making some cheese.

So I have a couple of questions:

1) How long can you store rennet in all its different forms?

2) Has anyone made "rennet" from stinging nettles?


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## Julia (Jan 29, 2003)

prometheus said:


> 1) How long can you store rennet in all its different forms?
> 
> 2) Has anyone made "rennet" from stinging nettles?


Liquid rennet will last at least a year in the fridge, and usually longer. When it does start deteriorating it does so gradually and at an even rate, so you can just add a little more, if needed. Tablet rennet lasts for a very long time, but is very hard to measure out correctly, and most cheesemakers use liquid rennet so they can adjust the amount they need as the dairy animals' milk changes over the course of a lactation, and with feed changes.

I've had friends try the nettles rennet, and it doesn't work. Frankly, I think it's an Internet myth. Now the flower of the cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) is used in Portugal as rennet. The Artisan Cheesemaker site discusses it about half way down the page. http://www.btinternet.com/~mull.cheese/jalldridge/page1.htm
If you're interested in reading about Portugese cheesemakers that use the cardoon flower, check out Dave and Mary Falk's article about small scale cheesemaking in portuagal and Spain. You'll need Adobe to read it. www.dbicusa.org/resources/falksizingdownviaspainandportugal.pdf -


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## Montanarchist (Feb 24, 2005)

Julia said:


> Liquid rennet will last at least a year in the fridge, and usually longer. When it does start deteriorating it does so gradually and at an even rate, so you can just add a little more, if needed. Tablet rennet lasts for a very long time, but is very hard to measure out correctly, and most cheesemakers use liquid rennet so they can adjust the amount they need as the dairy animals' milk changes over the course of a lactation, and with feed changes.
> 
> I've had friends try the nettles rennet, and it doesn't work. Frankly, I think it's an Internet myth. Now the flower of the cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) is used in Portugal as rennet. The Artisan Cheesemaker site discusses it about half way down the page. http://www.btinternet.com/~mull.cheese/jalldridge/page1.htm
> If you're interested in reading about Portugese cheesemakers that use the cardoon flower, check out Dave and Mary Falk's article about small scale cheesemaking in portuagal and Spain. You'll need Adobe to read it. www.dbicusa.org/resources/falksizingdownviaspainandportugal.pdf -


Thanks for the helpful info. 

The nettle info is in Carla Emery's book. She also mentioned cardoon, however, living in zone 4 that aint going to happen, I thought about nettles because we have a lot on the homestead.. The cardoon is in the thistle family IIRC, she mentioned thistles too. I wonder if they would work.


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## Julia (Jan 29, 2003)

Yeah, well, Carla was an amazing writer, but she fell down on research a lot. Her book has a lot of holes in it.. Good read, though.

You can grow cardoon as an annual, you know. I did it in zone 6 and it had plenty of time to flower before frost. You might be able to pull it off in zone 4.
Or you could start it early under lights like tomatoes or peppers.

I'm afraid native thistles don't work either. Sorry. The only other plant product I know of that curdles milk is the sap of the fig tree, and I don't suppose you have a lot of them in zone 4 either. 

You know, a pint of rennet will only cost you $16.75, and even if you made cheese everyday, it would last you for much longer than a year. Or you could get 2 ounces of real veal rennet (that's the gold standard) for just $6.50. Cheap fun...


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## Montanarchist (Feb 24, 2005)

Julia said:


> Yeah, well, Carla was an amazing writer, but she fell down on research a lot. Her book has a lot of holes in it.. Good read, though.
> 
> You can grow cardoon as an annual, you know. I did it in zone 6 and it had plenty of time to flower before frost. You might be able to pull it off in zone 4.
> Or you could start it early under lights like tomatoes or peppers.
> ...










Yea, I have to brush hog all the darn wild figs.









I'll be using liquid to start, but I'm all about preps, and if I have the skill I want the supplies to go with it in case TSHTF.


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## Julia (Jan 29, 2003)

You might want to learn how to make your own rennet, then...

_Lamb and kid vell paste

To make rennet yourself, use freshly harvested abomasa of milk-fed lambs and kids. Clean the vells with cold water and a solution of sodium carbonate. Then drain and cool them as quickly as possible. Cut the vells into squares and place in a common household food blender. To each 3.6 oz of cutup vell, add 1 teaspoon of table salt and 1 teaspoon of olive oil. Grind the mixture into a thick paste. Better dispersion of the material can be achieved by adding a bit of water and blending again. The dose of this paste ranges from 0.015% to 0.03% paste in the cheese milk.

Lamb and kid vell extract

Prepare the raw material as for paste and then add 1 cup of 102Â°F water to each 3 oz of cut-up vell. Soak the vell for 1 hour. Then add citric acid or lemon juice at the rate of 0.18 oz per cup of water, along with 1 teaspoon of salt per cup of water. Blend the mix thoroughly. Filter it through regular filter paper and use the liquid as a curdling agent. This method is not as common as the solid paste method because of the longer preparation time._

http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/html/em/em8908/


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## Montanarchist (Feb 24, 2005)

Julia said:


> You might want to learn how to make your own rennet, then...
> 
> _Lamb and kid vell paste
> 
> ...



Excellent thanks! It would need to be a true SHTF scenario for me to kill a kid, though.


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## Missy M (Mar 2, 2007)

Julia,
When you say lambs and milk fed kids, does this include goat kids?


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## Julia (Jan 29, 2003)

Missy M said:


> Julia,
> When you say lambs and milk fed kids, does this include goat kids?


????

As opposed to human kids?  

Yeah, goat kids.


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## Missy M (Mar 2, 2007)

Well I have met some human kids that would help explain why some species eat their young. LOL


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