Experience using wild 'rennets'?

MOZZARELLA made with citric acid

Dissolve 1 1/2 teaspoons citric acid in 1/2 cup cool water

Add to 1 gallon whole milk

Heat milk to 90 F, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

Add 1/4 teaspoon rennet diluted in 1/2 cup cool water, stir as usual, then leave undisturbed.

Check the curd after 5 minutes. Check for clean break, when clean break is reached, cut the curds.

Heat the curds in the whey to 110 F, gently moving the curds with a spoon. Remove from heat and stir another 3 minutes.

Remove curds from whey, heat water or whey to about 175F.

Add about 1/4 cup salt to the heated whey or water

Shape the curd into one or more balls, and lower the curd into the heated liquid to heat the curds. Lift out the curds and knead between two spoons. Repeat the heat and knead process until the cheese is smooth and pliable.

WHEY RICOTTA*

*This is the recipe that I said did not yield enough cheese from 3 gallons of whey to make it worth the trouble. I feed the whey to the chickens and they love it. When I made the Mozzarella as above, the whey was very very milky. I made ricotta from that whey (I did not add salt to the whey) and the cheese was wonderful. Some people make this reictta with whole milk, or add some milk to the whey they have. It can also be made with reconstituted powdered milk, if you can also add some cream.

Pour the whey into a large pot.

Heat to ~200F (almost boiling).

While stirring, turn off the heat and add 1/2 cup cider vinegar ( or other acid as listed in this thread)

You should be able to see coagulated protein forming into curds.

Ladle curds into strainer lined with butter muslin, and allow to drain.

When it is cool enough, some people add culture such as mesophilic or MD088, and fold it in.

When the cheese stops draining, open up the cloth and put the cheese in a bowl.

Optional: add herbs, salt, a touch of cream

thank you thekla

You're welcome!
I just hope it turns out!

I've seen it work with wild thistle, you use the purple stamens in the flower. And I suspect it works with artichoke, as the artichoke is a thistle cultivar, using the purple stamens of course.
You boil the stamens in water. Syphon off the rennet water. Then add the rennet water to the milk.

About 18:40

Hi realize this is an old thread but thought I would throw this info out there. "The Art of Natural Cheesemaking " by david asher is by far the best book I have seen on cheese making using natural techniques. Creator of the black sheep school of cheese making. David teaches the non american way of cheese making. Believing that cheese needs fresh raw milk and natural ingredients instead of pasteurized milk and lab produced cultures . Cheese has been being made for millennia, a long time before sterilization ,pasteurization and lab produced cultures. How to produce your own rennet , how to make "counter cultures" on your own counter! If you have an interest in cheese making the old fashioned way without laboratory help then I highly recommend this book.

thanK you. I just requested it from my library.

Will check it out, thanks

heres a bit about Asher's natural cheese making book.

Perhaps you could post a review and tell us more about your thoughts.

Not finished absorbing this yet, but will be glad to post a review asap. Will say that if david holds an inland class , the wife and I will be there if at all possible. Recently we located a source of certified A-2 raw milk. The wife is able to consume dairy products for the first time in over ten years ! Oh My the foods she has been able to make ! I leave her homemade butter alone but the cheese....

This reference [ http://www.kite-hill.com/our-craft/our-process/ ] cites proprietary methods to get nut milks to curdle properly for a better cheesemaking experience. Was just wondering if anyone had experience getting good curds from nut/soymilk using any of the homemade plant-sourced rennet preparations. Thanks....

The thread is a good opportunity to pick up my trials with herbal rennet again.

Bedstraw (galium verum) is local to Central Europe, as are galium album and galium aparine. In my garden I have two of them. In German they are literally called "Labkraut" = rennet herb.
I have found two websites that talk about making fresh cheese with those, using in addition yogurt, and a much longer duration than animal rennet. The herb gets inserted in tea bags.

You could try google translate for them:
Cheesemaking with galium 1
Cheesemaking with galium 2

Then I have found another (German) website which compiles different tips and links, and also talks about making hard cheese with the galium root:
Sources and recipes for herbal rennet

According to some histories the alpine herdsmen (think of Heidi) used galium to make cheese when they had no sophisticated material on hand but just things that grew up in the mountain pastures.

I just came across a website -- https://thecheesewanker.com/cheese-science/plant-based-rennet/#Types_of_plant-based_rennet -- which talks about different vegetable rennets, and it turns out that my back yard is full of two of them, cleavers and ground ivy.  I've been pulling armloads of both to feed to the chickens; guess I'll have to try making rennet from them soon!

Anita Martin wrote:.

Very interesting! The downside....I can't buy unpasteurized milk. It's illegal. One farmer tried by forming a co-op and dairy industry nearly bankrupt the guy :-(
Looks like I have to dig deeper for plant based 'milk" but there is so much confusion. Ugh  

This is an old thread but the only one I've found with information pertaining to my question, so here goes!

I was going about making a standard acid-coagulated fresh cheese with some just-soured raw milk (I had read about a Swedish method of using some sour milk to acidulate fresh milk). Heated to 130F and then added some white vinegar (!) as it wasn't separating (the milk wasn't that sour to begin with). I also added some strained yogurt whey from the fridge just to use less vinegar. I weirdly ended up with mozzarella, or something very like it (I'd never made before). The leftover whey was still quite milky, so I added more and made another few balls of mozzarella. I then made ricotta from the (still quite milky) whey.

Can anyone explain what happened?? The elements were sour raw milk, vinegar, and yogurt whey at 130F.

P.S. I love the idea of rhubarb juice for souring! I've been using it as a lemon sub for a while now and it's been great

Hi Kat, welcome to permies!
It's nice when something works out in a way that we weren't expecting - happy accidents!  I haven't much experience with cheese but maybe Kate Downham will be online and see your post as she's quite experienced, or one of the other homesteading experts with dairy.
Your experience shows that there is not one 'right way' to do things...replicating it - now that's quite another thing!

Hi Kat

You’re still going to be waiting for more knowledgeable cheesemakers, but here’s my input.  Mozzarella is very dependent on particular pH and particular temperature.  I guess you hit the jackpot!

It sounds like you have enough cheese making experience to try to improvise.  I would not mind having your luck!  Mozzarella is a cheese i seldom try because if I do end up with cheese, it is tough and dry

I think you did not add enough acid in what ever form at the start.  And did not heat it enough either, to get the target cheese you were wanting.  And maybe you heated the milk enough that the bacteria in the soured milk could not ferment the milk, and thereby acidify the milk, but got another cheese instead.

Kat Hwang wrote:This is an old thread but the only one I've found with information pertaining to my question, so here goes!

I was going about making a standard acid-coagulated fresh cheese with some just-soured raw milk (I had read about a Swedish method of using some sour milk to acidulate fresh milk). Heated to 130F and then added some white vinegar (!) as it wasn't separating (the milk wasn't that sour to begin with). I also added some strained yogurt whey from the fridge just to use less vinegar. I weirdly ended up with mozzarella, or something very like it (I'd never made before). The leftover whey was still quite milky, so I added more and made another few balls of mozzarella. I then made ricotta from the (still quite milky) whey.

Can anyone explain what happened?? The elements were sour raw milk, vinegar, and yogurt whey at 130F.

P.S. I love the idea of rhubarb juice for souring! I've been using it as a lemon sub for a while now and it's been great

Did you use any rennet? I’ve never heard of making mozzarella without rennet - sounds like a nice surprise. I’ve accidentally made mozzarella a few times when I’ve left the culturing/renneting cheese sitting around for too long and it gets to the right pH for mozzarella.