CaCl alternative

[jack schmidling]

As a crusader for DIY and owner of a small flock of hens, it occurred to me that there should be some way to turn egg shells into calcium for cheese making.

Made a 1/2 gal batch of cottage cheese last week and instead of buying CaCl, I put a tbs of ground egg shells in 1/2 cup of water and boiled this for 5 min.  I poured this through a tea strainer into the milk and proceeded as usual.

The cheese is no great shakes but it has been so long since I have made cheese that I have nothing to compare it to without going through a bunch  of experiments to test the idea.

Anyone have any ideas or experience with this?

Thanks,  Jack

[tecla]

That's an interesting idea. There's two things think about: first, whether boiling will chemically dissociate the calcium or not. (I'd imagine you might need something acidic to dissolve it, maybe some vinegar?) Second, you need that calcium to be "free" and able to chemically participate in the milk as ions during renneting. I would imagine with a little vinegar it would probably work, but I'm not sure how to check.

[jack schmidling]

My thoughts exactly... all of the above.

Hoping someone would do the work for me.

I think I will take it up with Citizen Chemist, one of my favorite gotos for chem.

Thanks,  Jack