Rennet, Microbial - Freeze Dried Powder, CHR Hansen Brand

[Cheese Head]

Ordered a bag of 20 small sealed in plastic - tin foil packages of CHR Hansen brand microbial fermented fungus powdered rennet from www.ebay.com USA seller nicajpk for USD12.50 & 1.50 shipping on Tuesday, arrived Friday in surface mail .

Ebay info page says

one envelope set 18 gallons of milk. Dissolve the Rennet in a cup of water, add 2 teaspoon of salt, add into the milk at 90º F. Stir for 3 minutes, allow milk to rest for 40 minutes.

Packages say in Spanish "coagulates 75 liters of milk", 20 packages x 75 liters/20 US gallons = 1500 liters/395 US gallons of milk! For USD14 thats 4 cents per US gallon.

Twenty envelops of white powder in a bag? That's the way they arrived, felt like I'm buying drugs!

Looked for them on CHR Hansen's website, couldn't find, looks like commercial product. Will post results . . .

[Cheese Head]

Finally used part of one package on a 3 US gallon cow's milk cheesemaking.

Problem that package is good for 75 liters/20 US gallons and only need enough for 3 US gallons, ~15% of package. Tried to weigh but home cooking scales not accurate enough. Thus assumed needed 20% not 15% and divided into 5 roughly equal piles and used one pile and put remainder in smaller baggy and stored back in freezer.

This stuff is very cheap but pain to measure when only making home hobby cheesemaking volumes.

[exhuman]

I am a total cheese newbie. Altho I've made Tofu and Paneer a few times.  I've ordered some microbial rennet and was wondering how I would divide it into very small amounts.  I saw these pics and wondered if you'd use razor blades or credit cards and a mirror like users of other powders.   

Can't wait to get my microbial in the mail and try to divide it up.

[Cheese Head]

Hi and welcome to the forum, most bottles of liquid rennet have the recommended dosage amounts on the label, if not there are some manufacturers guides in our Library.

If what you've ordered is in powder or rather I think crystal form, then again as per the label. If label is for the whole package for a large volume of milk, then you could do like many do for starter cultures, either weigh or measure the volume of the total package (without it's container), then divide the recommended volume or weight of milk by the weight or volume of your rennet to determine the dosage rate. Then after using, adjust the amount of rennet up or down depending on coagulation reaction.

Most people measure very small volumes of rennet using tiny measuring spoons. For small cheeses and very small amounts I found this inaccurate, so instead I measure by weight using a small scale that is probably more frequently sold for the purpose you inferred .

[Alex]

John, great price. What about shipping conditions like temperature?

[DeejayDebi]

Great score Giovanni! WOuld measuing in say teaspoons. pinches etc work?

[Cheese Head]

Alex and Debi, my OP is from 1.5 years ago when I bought that product (which I'm still using up).

New member exhuman made that new post. Debi, yes tiny smidge and pinch measuring spoons would reasonably work for small cheese batches but I think still not very accurate, thus reason I went down the weighing route.

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

Jewellery shops have got these very accurate scales for gold down to the miligram I think. If you know a jewellery shop owner you can go there and weigh your rennet powder.

Make sure you have the receipt and actual packaging though, and also wear something nice...