Rennet - Grocery Store Type?

[blindside]

Ok after christmas im taking a day off work and will finally have the time between work, school, and clinicals. I'm going to start with Motz. The question I have is this. Will a regular grocery store carry rennet? and I have a local dairy going to get the milk from, if the store dont carry it will the dairy?
Thank

[Cartierusm]

Yes and no. Basically to make proper good cheese it's best to use rennet made specifically for cheese. BUT you can use Junket rennet which can be found in your local supermarket, it's usually where the pudding making supplies are, maybe the baking section. Depending on what mozz recipe you are going to make you can use citric acid to coagulate, which can be easily had at any home brew or wine making store. You can find recipes which use vinegar but that can add an off taste, in my opinion. Call the dairy and see if they have any animal or vegetable rennet. If you order it now it will definately come before you need it, it's only $9 including shipping. See here http://www.thecheesemaker.com/cultures.htm. If you are making a proper, all day, mozz then you'll need a starter culture as well which you can find at the same place I listed above.

[blindside]

I've come across a web site ehow.com and on there it has several ways to make it. I'm not really sure what one that I'm going to do. This is the first time making it and really not sure how it's going to turn out.

[wharris]

IMHO
It is worth it to spend the 6.50 USD here.  Get the real thing.

Also,  get Calcium Chloride as well.

(Still stinging from some coagulant failures.)

[blindside]

I'm starting to think that there is a little more to it than I thought.   

[Cartierusm]

Can I answer Yes and No again...LOL it's hard and easy. Easy to make cheese, hard to make good cheese. Basically you can make crap cheese with just acids found in your kitchen, but making good cheese is hard. Because that involves making, let's say a cheddar, and making it taste the way its supposed to. Then there's the even harder part of consistently making it the same way everytime.

[wharris]

Blindside,

There is more to cheesemaking than most everyone here thinks.  (Save perhaps those pros amongst us).

My (oh so very humble) suggestion is to take the Nike approach.

That is,  "just do it."

failure or success,  its all about getting to it, and actually doing it.
Learning.  Improving, tweaking, redoing.

Hell, it keeps me off the streets.

[blindside]

Wish I could say it keeps me off the streets but I work them...   
Being an EMT I can say that and get away with it. I agree I know not all is going to work out but that's the joy in trying.

[Cheese Head]

Howdy Blindside, I see from your profile that you are in Oklahoma, I tried several chain stores here in Houston, Kroger, HEB, Fiesta and no luck until I found liquid Rennet in a Whole Foods Chain Store. If you search this forum you'll find a few other posts on rennet, I also build a info page on it here. I also bought some off of eBay.

The people above have good advice, just do it and if you order rennet off a Cheese Making Supply House, also order the CaCl2 if you are using pasteurized milk as it makes coagulation easier. That said I've made several batches without it, just need a little more rennet. Let us know your results!

[blindside]

Thanks for the info Cheese Head! I stopped by yesterday in a whole food's market and checked. They didn't carry it there so I think I'm going to have to get it on line.
One thing about the milk is there is a dairy about 10 miles from where I live. I plan on getting milk there fresh from the cow.

[Cheese Head]

Darn on Whole Food store, sorry I forgot to mention that I phoned ahead and second store had it after I talked to person in Cheese department, it was Malakai brand and hanging in the cooler section. There are a few recipes you can make without rennet and sometimes using acid in the Recipes section like Queso Blanco, Quesco Fresco, Lemon Cheese and of course the soft cheeses like Cream Cheese, Quark, & Mascarpone.

Most people find unpasteurized "raw" milk preferable for cheese making, good luck on getting them to sell you as there are special laws depending on what US state you are in, don't know about Oklahoma.

[blindside]

Well I ordered the stuff to start the process just waiting for it to come in now. I got to pick up some cheese cloth before I start.

[Cartierusm]

Did you mean for the text to scroll...pretty interesting.

[blindside]

yeah messing around new to the site

[Cartierusm]

Nice...that happy little fellow you got for an avatar, that's one fancy cheese knife.