Cheese rennet is an herb in the coffee family, also called lady's bedstraw and yellow bedstraw.
It contains a milk curdling enzyme, and the name cheese rennet comes from its ability to curdle milk for cheese making. The leaves and stems also yield a yellow dye which was used to color cheese and butter.
The name lady's bedstraw relates to its use as a mattress stuffing.
There are two alternatives to animal rennet that can make cheese rennet vegan. There is vegetable rennet, which is made from enzymes found in safflower, melon, fig leaves or thistles, and there is microbial rennet, which is made from mold cultures or bacteria or are created artificially in a lab. These enzymes work to separate the milk in a similar fashion to how yogurt is made. More specifically, they digest the sugars in the milk and produce lactic acid, which makes the milk curdle and solidify, just like animal rennet does.
All types of vegan rennet are usually listed on product labels as either enzymes or vegetable enzymes, without any further detail. The words vegetable enzymes are a guarantee that the rennet is vegan, but enzymes is generic enough term that it can refer to both animal and vegan sources. It requires the diligent vegetarian or vegan to make a call to the manufacturer’s customer service line to double check.
Some companies will use the term vegetable rennet, although it is not that common. It’s interesting to note that vegan rennet is not rennet at all, since the word rennet refers to an animal’s stomach lining. Manufacturers have just adopted the term to denote the similar purpose.
Cheese Rennet...
Rennet is an enzyme used to coagulate cheese, helping it make the transformation from liquid milk form to a solid. Traditionally rennet is extracted from the stomach lining of butchered veal calves. The calves have the rennet in their stomachs to help digest milk from their mothers. Older cows no longer have use for it and stop producing it.
Animal rennet is one of the most common ingredients in mass produced cheese, which can make it quite a hurdle for those looking to only eat cheese with vegan rennet. The following nationally distributed cheeses, plus many others, contain rennet from cows or other animals with four stomachs:
* Land O’Lakes asiago, provolone, parmesan, Romano and American
* All Pollio cheeses except mozzarella and ricotta
* Tillamook Vintage White Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese
* All Kraft cheeses except U.S. produced Swiss and Neufchatel
* Sorrento provolone and Parmesan
Cheeses that use animal rennet will usually have rennet or rennin listed on the ingredients label. Rennin is the less common name for the exact same product.
Natural calf rennet is extracted from the inner mucosa of the fourth stomach chamber (the abomasum) of young calves. These stomachs are a by-product of veal production. If rennet is extracted from older calves (grass-fed or grain-fed) the rennet contains less or no chymosin but a high level of pepsin and can only be used for special types of milk and cheeses. As each ruminant produces a special kind of rennet to digest the milk of its own mother, there are milk-specific rennets available, such as kid goat rennet especially for goat's milk and lamb rennet for sheeps milk. Rennet or digestion enzymes from other animals, like swine-pepsin, are not used in cheese production.
Rennet is a natural complex of enzymes produced in any mammalian stomach to digest the mother's milk, and is often used in the production of cheese. Rennet contains many enzymes, including a proteolytic enzyme (protease) that coagulates the milk, causing it to separate into solids (curds) and liquid (whey). The active enzyme in rennet is called chymosin or rennin (EC 3.4.23.4) but there are also other important enzymes in it, e.g., pepsin or lipase. There are non-animal sources for rennet that are suitable for vegetarian consumption.
Cheese Rennet...
A coagulant is anything that curdles milk. Rennet is a generally used as a generic term used to describe a an animal dervived coagulant that includes the enzyme rennin or chymosin (the two terms refer to the same thing—-rennin is an older term while chymosin is the more chemically specific term for the same enzyme). But rennet is only one of several types of coagulating agents.
Essentially there are 5 types of coagulants used to make cheese:
1.Animal Derived Rennet:
This the rennet used in most traditional cheese making plants. The rennet or rennin refers to collection of enzymes that comes from the fourth stomach of ruminant animals (kid, calf or lamb). If we look at rennet through a chemist’s eyes, rennet is chiefly made up of two enzymes that break down protein chains in milk: chymosin and pepsin. The enzyme mostly responsible for coagulating milk is chymosin as it works to breakdown casein—the primary protein of concern to cheesemakers. As chymosin is the chief coagulating agent, today we see highly clarified versions of animal rennets which contain up to 97% chymosin—an outcome considered to be desirable by some cheese makers hoping to achieve a very clean taste profile and quick set. In addition, there are now also organic animal rennets on the market. Animal rennet in any form is still the most expensive coagulant (Up to 2x more expensive than alternatives) on the market. It’s price is a function of supply which in turn is tied to events on the global market for cow, goat and lamb meat products. Some perceive the use of animal stomachs to produce rennet naturally as somewhat primitive. Others perceive it as an example of how to ensure we make use of all parts of an animal.
2.Microbial Rennet:
Microbial rennet is term used to describe a coagulating agent produced by a specific type of mold, fungus or yeast organism grown and fermented in a lab setting. This coagulant is considered vegetarian friendly as the enzyme produced by the organism is not derived from an animal. While this type of rennet is appropriate for vegetarians, cheese makers agree that cheeses made with this type of microbial rennet tends to result in bitterness in the flavor profile especially when the cheese is aged. This coagulant is less expensive than animal rennet. But true microbial rennet is now hard to find. Its use has been replace d by FPC Rennet.
3.FPC-Fermentation Produced Chymosin Rennet:
This is fairly new type of microbial rennet (1990). This version of microbial rennet is made by taking the rennin producing gene out of the animal cell’s DNA string and then inserting into the a bacteria, yeast or mold host cell’s DNA string. Once inserted, the newly placed gene initiates the production of the chymosin enzyme within the host. The host culture is cultivated and fermented. The result. An inexpensive harvest of real chymosin enzymes. This is seen to be an improvement on the original microbial rennet as it is real chymosin and not a mold or yeast based substitute. Moreover, it can be more economically produced in unlimited supply and addresses some of the concerns with pure microbial rennet regarding the bitter flavor in aged cheeses. The procedure itself has been around for some time and is similar to the procedure used to make many vaccines. But, there is more to consider.
FPC Rennet and GMO Controversy
FPC rennet is a GMO product. And, according to the culture companies, 90% of all cheeses produced in North America is made with FPC rennet. However, ingredient labels do not distinquish between this type of microbial rennet or the original non-GMO based type. And the fact that use of FPC type microbial rennet is not labeled a GMO product leaves those who oppose the use of GMOs in the dark when it comes to choosing their cheeses.
In addition, further confusion and debate arises over the general differences between GMO products versus “genetically engineered” products as the latter elicits deeper concerns from those opposed to this type of science. While FPC rennet is GMO, it is not a genetically engineered product, technically speaking, because, the DNA taken from the animal cell and inserted into the DNA string of a bacterium or mold is not changed. Genetically engineered foods actually goes as far as to modify the specific gene responsible for a particular function in order to improve its function. In other words, it takes messing with genes to another, deeper level. Its like playing with the shape of the lego block its self, not just with the order of the lego blocks.
In the end, what this means is that most cheese in North America is made from vegetarian friendly but still animal originated, GMO derived FPC rennet. And that while use of this type of rennet is banned in GMO-free European countries doesn’t mean the cheese we buy from those countries are necessarily FPC free. To quote one Danish expert “We can’t use FPC rennet in Denmark for our own domestic cheese or cheese make for other European countries which have banned its use. We only use it for cheese we export to North America. .”Why? Because again, it is a cheaper and more consistently available form of rennet.
4.Vegetable Rennet:
True vegetable (vrs vegetarian rennet term which is used interchangeably with microbial rennet) rennet comes from plants which produce certain enzymes that have coagulating properties. Some examples include cardoon thistle, fig tree bark or nettles. These are “real” vegetable rennets. However, they often also have undesirable effects on cheese flavor (bitterness) and are a little more unpredictable when used in cheeses not traditionally made with vegetable rennet. Still, some traditional Portuguese cheeses are still made with vegetable rennet as are cheeses in other countries where killing lets say, a calf, would not be allowed or economically wise. In North America, commercially produced vegetable rennet is hard if not impossible to source. However, some artisan cheese makers (e.g. in Maine) are experimenting with it once again and word has it that a company in Edmonton, Alberta will soon be commercially producing a true vegetable rennet.
5.Citric Acid or Vinegar:
Finally, some cheeses like Ricotta are coagulated using simple lemon juice or vinegar. However, this coagulant is mostly used when making a heat precipitated curd. These coagulants are decidedly vegetarian. But this coagulant has a very limited use due to its limitations and noticeable taste profile.
Traditional animal rennet is an enzyme derived from the stomachs of calves, lambs or goats before they consume anything but milk. (Ours is all from calves.) It is about 90% pure chymosin. Vegetable rennet is obtained from a type of mold (Mucur Miehei). However, even though it is derived from mold, there is no mold contained in the final product. It is an equivalent chymosin product which works equally well but is not animal derived. We have recently added organic vegetable rennet to our catalog. Rennet thrives at temperatures in the 85-105F range, but it won't be deactivated completely until it reaches the 140F's. Rennet continues working to set the milk as long as it has the right conditions. So, when a recipe calls for cutting the curds after a certain time period, it is important to follow the directions. Otherwise, your curds may be too firm for the cheese you are trying to make.
How do I choose which rennet to use?
Rennet is standardized, so all the different kinds of rennet (liquid, tablet or powder) work the same to set milk. Liquid is the easiest to work with because you can measure it very precisely. However, the powders and tablets will keep better under more adverse conditions. Calf rennet is considered to be the best choice for longer aged cheeses because some of its residual components help to complete the breakdown of proteins. Some of the more complex proteins in the vegetable rennet can have a slightly bitter taste after 6 months of aging. The liquid vegetable rennet is Kosher, but it has been re-packaged without Kosher supervision.
How much salt is in rennet?
The amount of salt in rennet is miniscule. It is there as a preservative. Considering that you add 1/4 teaspoon of rennet to a gallon of milk and that much of the rennet runs off with the whey during draining, the amount of salt left in the cheese is virtually impossible to measure. If you are interested in making cheese with no salt, the fresh cheeses, Mozzarella and Ricotta are best suited for this. The aged cheeses require a slight amount of salt to sow bacterial activity.
