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Where do you get cyrstalized rennet and what are the advantages/disadvantages?

siegfriedw, I bought my CHR Hansen Brand of powdered crystallized rennet off of eBay USA. I don't know the lineage or how well it was stored so I won't buy it off of eBay again, and actually I've never seen it on eBay since. I did contact CHR Hansen and they said they only sell small retail size packages in the Brazil market, so that could be where it came from.

As far as I've seen, I think I'm the only one here using powdered crystallized rennet, most use liquid and I have no idea of the advantages/disadvantages.

That said I did notice that Austrian rennet maker Hundsbichler makes dried powdered product called BioRen. Details page says it's particularly good for long aged cheeses as 97% chymosin.

Also, there is a post here about Valirin brand powdered rennet.

I have seen powdered rennet here,
http://www.cheesemaking.com/store/p/107-Powdered-Calf-Rennet-100-gms.html

I have not used it alone but have tried it in one of NEC's renneted cultures. One drawback would be correctly measuring such small increments, 1/16 tea or 1/3 gram per 1-2 gallons. If you make larger batches it wouldn't be much of a problem though.

Christy

Christy, good point, that and measuring small quantities of starter culture are why I bought one of these.