Author Topic: Calcium Chloride - What & Where Buy & What Amount Use & How Well Work?  (Read 55317 times)

Cheese Head

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Several recipes talk about using Calcium Chloride salt to help curd formation of store bought pasteurized homogenized milk.

Calcium Chaloride is used for melting road ice and many hardware store have huge cheap bags of it, but I assume of low grade / non food quality.

I also found that DOW Chemicals has a list of different Calcium Chloride grades they manufacturer, some food grade.

The best quality I can see online is I think very refined/pure Calcium Chloride used for salt water aquarium enthusiasts.

I've seen it available from Cheese Supply Websites, but does anyone know what concentration and where they are getting their supply from, ie while only using a very little, is it food grade edible quality?

Any thoughts/advice?
« Last Edit: June 12, 2008, 02:17:12 AM by Cheese Head »

reg

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Re: Calcium Chloride
« Reply #1 on: May 04, 2008, 01:14:04 PM »
we found it at a drug store. the drugist was good enough to check into the allowed uses and found it was a food grade product. the cost was $18 but you have enough for years of cheese making

reg

Cheese Head

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Calcium Chloride
« Reply #2 on: May 04, 2008, 02:39:52 PM »
Thanks reg, I also checked at large CVS store's prescription department here and they said they have nothing (I think they do have it like you found and use it for prescriptions) and sent me to the stomach acids area where nothing. I'll try another pharmacy.

I work in oil business and when working in Siberia in early 90's we used it for making dense brine for killing wells and I took a sample, see attached snap. I used one small or 1/2 a large "ball" that I weighed at just under 1 gram for a 1 US gallon batch of cheese.

I have to find a better source than this 15 year old Russian non-food grade Calcium Chloride, my only consolation is that the amount is small.

How much do you use for what size batch?
« Last Edit: May 04, 2008, 02:48:48 PM by Cheese Head »

reg

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Re: Calcium Chloride
« Reply #3 on: May 04, 2008, 02:53:17 PM »
morning CH. for each gal of milk we use 1/8 teaspoon, not even enough to weigh

reg

SalMac

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Re: Calcium Chloride - What & Where Buy & What Amount Use & How Well Work?
« Reply #4 on: September 03, 2008, 06:56:17 PM »
Just an fyi I bought 200g of food grade calcium chloride online from a brew your own beer and wine store for £2.50

Probably going to need to work out the quantities reqd tho.

wharris

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Re: Calcium Chloride - What & Where Buy & What Amount Use & How Well Work?
« Reply #5 on: November 10, 2008, 08:54:15 PM »
From Leeners.com

"CALCIUM CHLORIDE SOLUTION 1 oz.$1.95 1 pt.$7.95
Improves curd size and texture when using store bought milk. One teaspoon will treat 2 gallons of milk. 30% solution.  To compensate for the processing of store bought milk, add calcium chloride prior to adding rennet to the cheese mixture.  The addition of calcium chloride will help restore the altered milk protein and aid in the development of a quality curd.  Specific instructions for using calcium chloride are given with recipes "



wharris

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Re: Calcium Chloride - What & Where Buy & What Amount Use & How Well Work?
« Reply #6 on: November 25, 2008, 10:38:21 PM »
For the record, i just tried to create some cheddar WITHOUT the Calcium Chloride. 
Store bought, homogenized, pasteurized whole milk.

It was a complete failure.  had to pitch all 5 gallons. After 90 min of setting (double the usual time) my pH was down to 5.8 and i had curd the consistency of yogurt. 

i will always use Calcium Chloride on homogenized milk.

Offline Cartierusm

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Re: Calcium Chloride - What & Where Buy & What Amount Use & How Well Work?
« Reply #7 on: December 11, 2008, 09:56:05 AM »
As others have said Calcium Chloride can be found at any home brew store wine making store. They usually come in 2 oz. packs. Take 1/2 oz. by weight and mix with 4 oz. water. Mix until disolved and it will last forever. It's best to use in it's diluted form as opposed to granulated form and after you mix it, it's ready to use so you don't have to fuss while making cheese.

dime0000

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Re: Calcium Chloride - What & Where Buy & What Amount Use & How Well Work?
« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2009, 02:19:47 AM »
i bought a dry form of calcium chloride from the local homebrew shop. for *beer* you would typically used about 1/2 tsp for a 5G batch.

according to the info i can find, in water, "1 gram per gallon adds 72 ppm calcium, 127 ppm chloride".

do you guys think 1/4tsp for the 2G batch, like the liquid version?


Offline Cartierusm

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Re: Calcium Chloride - What & Where Buy & What Amount Use & How Well Work?
« Reply #9 on: January 03, 2009, 02:27:28 AM »
First off it's best to dilute it ahead of time in DISTILLED WATER NOT TAP WATER! That way its ready and disolved any time you need it. I don't know if it's necessary but I use a glass jar, I presonally use a mason jar, easy to find and cheap, or buy a glass bottle of something at the store and drink it and use it. Make sure to label it.

Anyway, if it's a 2 oz. pack of dry mix it with 16 oz. of DISTILLED water, then use 1/8 tsp. per gallon, so for 2 gallons 1/4 tsp. Good luck.

Cheese Head

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Re: Calcium Chloride - What & Where Buy & What Amount Use & How Well Work?
« Reply #10 on: January 03, 2009, 02:30:48 AM »
dime0000 good question, I've never really taken the time to figure out the concentration as I know that this bottle I bought works well at 1/2 teaspoon diluted CaCl2 per 1 US gallon of store bought pasteurized homogenizd whole cow's milk.

Yikes, I just re-read that vendors directions, says to use 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoons for 3 US gallons of milk :o! Oops, no wonder I've recently been getting a great curd set ::). Anyone know what the result is of using too much CaCl2?

If you go to my info page on Calcium Chloride and click on the thumbnail you get a bigger picture and the label gives some concentration details.

Offline Cartierusm

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Re: Calcium Chloride - What & Where Buy & What Amount Use & How Well Work?
« Reply #11 on: January 03, 2009, 02:42:23 AM »
John, you're always self-flatulating (is that what I mean) YOU have the great question!!!! If you're getting a great curd, maybe we should be adding more CACL. I don't think it will hurt, it's basically calcium salt, so it has a salty taste. But we use it in so little quantities it won't matter.

John, are you using store bought milk? If so what do you curds looks like after you cut them? Are they that perfect Tofu Jello mass? I'm trying to figure out if we all get the same result from store bought milk and if one of us has a better curds, what he/she is doing.

dime0000

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Re: Calcium Chloride - What & Where Buy & What Amount Use & How Well Work?
« Reply #12 on: January 03, 2009, 02:49:02 AM »

Anyway, if it's a 2 oz. pack of dry mix it with 16 oz. of DISTILLED water, then use 1/8 tsp. per gallon, so for 2 gallons 1/4 tsp. Good luck.

LOL - i just checked, and it's actually a pound!! So anyway - cool, 2oz to 16oz dist. water.

thanks!

Offline Cartierusm

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Re: Calcium Chloride - What & Where Buy & What Amount Use & How Well Work?
« Reply #13 on: January 03, 2009, 02:58:21 AM »
2 oz. by weight and 16 oz. by volume, crazy americans and their voodoo system of measurements...oh I'm american, doh!

16 oz. of water, not a total of 16 oz. including the powder.

SalMac

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Re: Calcium Chloride - What & Where Buy & What Amount Use & How Well Work?
« Reply #14 on: January 04, 2009, 09:37:52 PM »
Cartier I know this is way late for this thread but would that be self-flagellating?

I am sure that CH whilst being otherwise a perfect human being also does the other lmao

<cough> sorry CH :-)