Stretching the comfort zone.
We regularly teach home cheese making classes, and semi regular butcher classes. Some students want to be completely self sufficient and not rely on external tools or things you’d have to buy. While I don’t personally support this view (I believe people need each other), I can totally relate and understand it. So the question comes, “can you make your own rennet?”. Well, yes, I know we can. It’s traditionally made from the milk stomach of a very young lamb, kid, or calf. Cleaned, salted, and aged. Then blended or soaked with water to make a useable liquid rennet. With spring babies surrounding us, we took advantage of an extra buck kid named Rennet. It looks like a curious science experiment at this point, but it’s a fascinating learning experience! I’m quite curious to see if kid, lamb, and calf rennet perform differently from each other. If we get another good jersey bull calf...
Then there’s vegetable rennet. Often made from nettles or big purple thistles. The thistles we have and I look forward to trying. It’s not recommended for cows milk however because the peptides react differently and create a bitter cheese. I have a feeling purchased rennet is going to look very affordable after creating some of our homemade mixtures!!
The other DIY project is making our own sausage casings. I’m using the “I’m pregnant and can’t...” excuse on that one and leaving it to Alan! I’m quite willing to stuff them, but harvesting and cleaning???🙄
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