Since my last question about using homemade rennet I had a goat freshen, and I've experimented further with the rennet. My present question is how do I know if I'm using too much or too little rennet? I suppose if I'm using too little the milk either won't coagulate or it will take too long to coagulate. What'sis the result on the cheese of coagulating over more or less time, though? Are there other signs/results of using too little rennet? What about using too much rennet? Besides wasting rennet, are there any negative results?
By the way, what seems to be working for me with the homemade rennet is (for a gallon of milk) to take a piece between the size of a nickel and a quarter, brush as much surplus salt off as I can, and soak it all day in about 1/2 cup of water at summer time room temperatures (averaging 80+ degrees), then drain the water off into the cultured milk and let coagulate overnight. This seems to have worked for me with both goat and cow's milk. I don't know what parts of my process are essential or unnecessary, nor how to improve the process, but I'm making cheese in the meantime.
