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Folks,

I'm new to cheese making. I'm based in the UK and am struggling to find supplies of unhomogenised milk - I've already tried for my butter experiments.

So, stuck with supermarket 'milk' I've been researching the use of calcium chloride.

Suppliers sell solution in the 30% kind of range but the posts I've seen on the WWW show a distinct lack of scientific rigor regarding its preparation. Most people seem to believe this is a weight/volume measure.

30 g of anhydrous CaCl2 gives more free Ca2+ than 30 g of CaCl2.2H2O.

Calcium chloride comes in a range of anhydrous and hydrated salts so you need to know which salt you are using before you start since the same weights of anhydrous and hydrated salts will give very different % solutions.

Since it is the free calcium we are interested in could someone please provide an explanation of calcium chemistry during cheese making in terms of moles of calcium?

In practice, it may not make a huge difference, but since the rest of cheese making is quite precise, I'd like to understand the chemistry better, so I can apply it properly.

I'm guessing the commercial producers have an analytical chemist to test their milk thus making the process more consistent.

Is there any easy 'cheese friendly' way to test for free calcium for the amateur?

Thanks in anticipation.

Nutty Prof.

Now that's one helluva question
AC4U
Oh, and by the way I have NO clue what your talkin about

1/3 food grade anhydrous calcium chloride to 2/3 water by volume will give you a 33% solution. You can but calcium at your local pool/spa supply really cheap. It works, but it is not food grade. I just bout a 50# bag of food grade on ebay for $45 plus shipping.

What exactly do you expect to gain from that measurement? You're addressing something that really doesn't have to be held close.

I see you refer to the difficulty in finding unhomogenised milk, and are looking at CaCl2 to redress an imbalance. Hobbyist cheesemakers tend to use CaCl2 to redress the imbalance in pasteurised milk. Of course, homogenised is also pasteurised, but the milk structure has been so buggered about with that a little imprecision in the strength of CaCl2 isn't going to make much difference.
You might like to find yourself a copy of Fox P.F., 2012, "Cheese: Chemistry, Physics, and Microbiology"
Good luck!

Quote from: Sailor Con Queso on April 19, 2016, 07:41:01 PM
1/3 food grade anhydrous calcium chloride to 2/3 water by volume will give you a 33% solution. You can but calcium at your local pool/spa supply really cheap. It works, but it is not food grade. I just bout a 50# bag of food grade on ebay for $45 plus shipping.

Around here I can buy "Pickle Crisp" in the canning section of the supermarket -- it is calcium chloride in crystal form, food grade, and very inexpensive. I just measure out 1/3 as much of the crystals as I would have used of the 33% liquid. It seems to work for me!

The method for getting the right solution is not complicated. That's because the solution you buy is how much can be dissolved into that amount of water. Incidentally, if you dissolve your own, and stop at the point where no more dissolves, you will have the right concentration. It's also not major enough a part of the process to be more precise than that about.

Duchy Originals milk is not homogonised, I'm from the UK and that is what I use.

Folks,

Thanks for all the contributions.

There is a relatively simple way to check for free Calcium in your milk using a titration with EDTA.

Solubility of anhydrous CaCl2 is ~74 g per 100ml at 20 degrees C (obviously solubility varies with temperature). So if you make a saturated solution at room temp (20 C) your solution won't be anything like 30% - you will have more than twice the amount of free Ca2+ than you thought.

Having read a few of the academic papers on the subject, the amount of CaCl2 can have a profound effect on the final cheese - taste spoilage etc. and it isn't a simple relationship. Commercially they appear to use anything up to the legally allowed limit of 20g per 100kg, but rarely less than 5g per 100kg.

The 'big cheeses' in the industry seem to be continuing to investigate it's use in relation to all the milk variables - casein in particular.

I am going with food grade CaCl2.2H20 and making it up in accordance with chemical (molar) principles to ensure it's the same each time - pity I can't say the same for the milk!

Looking for a cheese friendly pH probe now...

Nutty Prof.

Excellent idea! Don't forget to post your recipe, preferably described in terms of weights of ingredients, when you've worked it out!

I tried PM this message but could not answer what the forum is about question correctly.

I work for Hanna Instruments and we offer the HI99165. It can be ordered from our office in Befordshire.

http://hannainst.com/hi99165-portable-ph-meter-for-cheese.html

For molar concentration the following applies:

Mol = mass/molecular weight

Molarity = moles/Liter

1 mol of calcium = 40.078g (MW of Calcium)

1M Ca = 40.078g/L = 40 ppt (parts per thousand) = 4 pph (parts per hundred) = 4%

1 mol CaOH = 57.085g (FW of calcium hydroxide)

1 mol of CaOH (57.085) x 2 H20 (18.015) = 75.1 g

As it can be seen to have 1 mol calcium will depend on the compound. Being hydrated (water) requires more weight of the substance. It is very common to report the same substance in two forms. For example ammonia or ammonia nitrogen. Ammonia is NH3 where is ammonia nitrogen is proportion of nitrogen in ammonia.  So if I have a calcium chloride solution (FW = 110.98) then the fraction of calcium is 40.078/110.98 = 0.36. A 1M CaCl2 solution is equal to 110.98 g/L (ppt). The calcium concentration is 110.98 x 0.36 = 40 ppt (1M calcium).

Not sure if that was the information (conversions) that you were looking for.

.... My head just exploded

Pop !