I'm curious -- is one really better then the other? Or not?
Please read https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,4318 (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,4318)
and my article.
Quote from: linuxboy on March 20, 2011, 10:55:45 PM
Please read https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,4318 (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,4318)
and my article.
Thanks! I'm heading there now :)
http://www.wacheese.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73 (http://www.wacheese.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73)
Holy cow! Thanks!
I started reading and went DOH! I wish I'd asked this question months ago.
I'll be buying some animal rennet ASAP! I just figured it was all the same...silly me!
Please note that I am biased (justifiably so). It is possible to make great cheese with GMO rennet, and many plants/factories do. Most commercial cheese is made with one of the GMO products. However, there are flavor nuances one can achieve with natural rennet that are difficult to achieve with other types of enzymes.
Quote from: linuxboy on March 20, 2011, 11:48:39 PM
Please note that I am biased (justifiably so). It is possible to make great cheese with GMO rennet, and many plants do. Most commercial cheese is made with one of the GMO products. However, there are flavor nuances one can achieve with natural rennet that are difficult to achieve with other types of enzymes.
GMO = Genetically Modified ?? I WON'T use it if that's the case no matter how well it works...I just saw your notes on bitterness and curd size and a lightbulb went on over my head :)
Weeelll... GMO rennet is different from GMO food/plants. I understand the concern, but chemically, producing a synthesized form of an enzyme and concentrating it is fairly benign (in terms of the scientific data). It's one thing to consume a modified plant directly, it's another thing entirely to use a bacterium or mold as a host, and use it as a factory to synthesize an enzyme, then extract and concentrate it.
up to each person to make individual decisions, of course. Personally, I support and teach ultra-traditional methods for making cheese, including using plant extracts from thistle (and other plants), abomasa, and pre-gastric glands as a source of enzymes and lipases for coagulation and flavor formation.
How is it "modified"?
The way you make commercial enzymes like this is isolate the gene sequence responsible for enzyme production, splice it into a plasmid, and then introduce the plasmid into any of the approved organisms (in the US approved by FDA). After that, you take the new organism, purify it, propagate it, and see if it passes all the tests for stability, viability, purity of enzyme production, etc. Then you apply with the FDA to have the new organism and resulting enzyme be added to the GRAS list.
In other words, in the case of modern rennin production, the rennin producing gene is spliced into a plasmid, and that plasmid inserted into bacteria or yeast, which then make a biosynthesized form of rennin.