What Is The Difference Between Vegetable And Animal Rennet? Should I Avoid Either?

Both vegetable rennet and animal rennet are used to make cheese, and they are both available in different forms, such as liquid, tablets, or powder. Rennet is used in the cheese making process to help speed up the thickening, or coagulation, of the milk proteins in order to separate the cheese curds from the whey. The whey is poured off and the curds are then cooked, and sometimes they are aged or further processed to make cheeses like Cheddar, Swiss and Mozzarella.

Animal Rennet

Animal rennet comes from an enzyme called chymosin that is naturally produced in the stomach of a baby cow, goat, or sheep before the animal has eaten anything besides its mother’s milk. When the young animal is slaughtered, the rennet is extracted from its stomach, and then the rennet is processed with milk to produce cheese curds. Adult animals do not have the enzyme, as it is not produced once an animal eats grass, grain, or anything besides mother’s milk. Most European cheese makers use animal rennet to make their cheeses, such as certain Cheddars, Brie, and Mozzarella. Many traditional European cheese makers also store milk in a sort of pouch made from the stomach as well.

Vegetable Rennet

Many plants are coagulants and can be used instead of animal rennet to make cheeses. Fig extract is one such plant, and others include thistle, nettles, mallow, and dried caper leaves. Essentially, the plants are just boiled in water, and then the liquid is strained off and stored to use for cheese making. The process for using the vegetable rennet is the same as for animal rennet; the milk is combined with a small amount of acid to begin the coagulation process, and as it is cooking, the vegetable rennet is added to the milk so that cheese curds will form. Some cheeses, like Mozzarella, are ready to be eaten soon after the curds are separated from the whey, while others, such as Cheddar, undergo further processing.

Should You Avoid Either?

Both animal and vegetable rennet are capable of producing delicious cheeses. Avoiding eating cheeses made with one or the other is simply a matter of preference. Many fine European cheeses are made exclusively from animal rennet, such as Parmigiano-Reggiano. Similar cheeses made from vegetable rennet are often considered inferior. On the other hand, many people are bothered by the idea of eating cheese that results from the slaughter of an un-weaned animal, so they choose cheeses that are made from vegetable rennet instead.

Cheese curd produced from animal rennet is not kosher either, so that is another fact to take into consideration. In fact, most kosher cheeses are made from rennet that is produced in a laboratory using microbes. Certain types of fungi, yeasts and microbes have been combined with animal genes so that they will produce chymosin, which is then used to produce cheese curds in the cheese making process. Laboratory produced rennet is generally thought to produce cheeses, such as mozzarella and cheddar, that have a taste and texture very similar to those produced from animal rennet.

Can You Freeze Cheddar Cheese?

Cheese; you either are completely in love with it, want it on everything or don’t really care for it. Take a vote and you’ll find people tend to be madly in love with cheese, eating it plain, with crackers or on a great many dishes. They may through a slice on apple pie or make veggies more appealing by melting it over them.

Why Freeze It If We’re Gobbling It Up?

The fact is, cheese can be pricey if you like the good stuff or if you like to enjoy it often.  There are a couple of different ways you can save money on cheese. One is taking advantages of sales and the other is buying in bulk. Both mean that you might end up with more Cheddar than you can eat before it starts to get moldy.  Now you are left with the inevitable question of what to do with all this delicious cheese. The first and often simplest answer is to consider freezing your cheddar, mozzarella or cheese curds. But now you’re left with wondering how it will hold up to it.

What Will Come Out Of The Freezer

Because Cheddar cheese isn't nearly as soft as Mozzarella or cheese curds you will find that it will hold up to the freezing process better than the soft varieties. Often our softer cheese (which isn't aged as long) has more space for the air to get into it and will lose flavor faster as well as its texture. To be honest, the last thing you’ll want to do is take a very fine cheese like a Camembert you've imported and toss it into the freezer. Instead send it to a real cheese fan that will gobble it up and enjoy every morsel!

Most likely you aren't asking about the gourmet flavors, you’re asking about some bulk cheddar cheese. If you are planning on eating the cheese in slices, served with crackers or another side like fruit then you might want to reconsider. The texture of a firm cheese like Cheddar tends to come out of the freezer with most its integrity intact, although it will be texturally different. Don’t worry though; your flavor will still be there. This is why freezing Cheddar or even Mozzarella (semi-soft) cheese for later use in cooking can be an excellent way to preserve your cheese and your budget.

Consider The Following Tips:
• Cheeses like Parmigiano Regggiano, Asiago, Romano or aged Cheddar tend to fare the process very well.
• Don’t freeze for longer than six months or you can run into freezer burn and poor flavor.
• Freeze in small portions that you’ll use in a dish such as baked spaghetti, pizza, or casseroles.
• Shred before freezing and toss the cheese in a light coating of corn starch or flour to keep them from sticking.
• If freezing in slices, separate with wax paper to prevent sticking.
• Take time to store it very well. Tightly wrap in plastic wrap or aluminum foil and then seal in a quality freezer bag being careful to get ALL the air out.

What Are The Hard, Crunchy, Crystallized Things In And On Hard Cheeses?

If you are someone who enjoys cheese there’s a good chance you’ve tasted quite a few different types. You’re likely to have enjoyed aged Gouda, Sharp Cheddar and even fresh cheese curds. During all these different taste tests you’ve probably ran across crystal crunchies on some of your cheese. These treats may have left you wondering if your cheese was fresh and just where the crystals come from. To better understand you’ll need to get a look at how cheese is made.

How Do You Make An Aged Cheddar?

When making Cheddar, as well as many other cheeses, they start with high quality milk. They ripen the milk with one of the many different ripening agents available. During this process lactose, the sugar found in milk gets consumed by bacteria to form lactic acid. After it has been ripened to the cheese maker’s satisfaction rennet is added to get curds to start forming. Once you have the curds you are well on your way to making your cheddar. These curds will be pressed and the whey (liquid) will be separated. Once all the whey has been drained off you will press the cheese and form it. If you’re making Cheddar it’s usually formed into a brick.

Aging The Cheddar

Cheese can’t just be aged in just any old place. The right area, with the correct humidity, temperature and mold spores have to be available. Specialty cheese cellars or caves are generally used. Here they will be checked on regularly to make sure the rind and moisture develop accordingly. Different countries have different rules for their aging areas. The French only get to age one type of cheese per room and the rooms aren't sterile. In the US sterile conditions are required and different cheeses are permitted in one room. Some of these cheeses can be aged for six years or more, creating a complex, sharp flavor!

What Does All This Have To Do With The Crystals?

Many people tend to think these bits are actually salt. This is not the case, unless you are talking about cheeses with washed-rinds. In these varieties you may have a salt residue from the brine.  With hard cheese, they are tyrosine which is from clusters of amino acid. They are generally found on cheeses that have aged longest, such as aged Cheddar, Swiss or Gouda as well as Parmigiano Reggiano among others. The protein casein, which is dominant in milk, actually makes Tyrosine. It is formed during the process of making cheese by trapping proteins and fats during acidification. It is perfectly edible and generally adds a lovely texture and compliments pairings with beverages such as wine and rich stouts.

Why Is Some Cheese Orange?

All cheese is produced from milk that is then processed to produce cheese. Cow, goat and sheep’s milk are the most common milks used for cheese making. Milk is white, so why aren’t all cheeses white like mozzarella?  Cheddar cheese for example, is orange and many others range in color from off-white to light yellow to deep orange.

Milk

All milk isn’t actually white, and that leads to the explanation for why we have so much variety in the colors of cheeses. The actual color of milk produced from an animal varies according to the animal’s diet. For example, an animal might eat mostly hay in the winter, which produces slightly off-white colored milk. In the spring and summer however, pasture fed animals may eat a lot of fresh grass, which contains higher levels of beta-carotene. The milk they produce is orange tinged. The cheese curds produced from the different shades of milk are differently colored as well.

Yellow And Orange Cheese

Because of the variation in the animals’ diets the curds for some cheeses such as cheddar are different colors. Cheese produced in the spring and summer is more of an orange color, and cheese produced in fall and winter is more yellow or off- white. Because the cheese produced from grass fed animals was believed to contain more butterfat, the orange cheese was believed to be better. This left cheese makers with less desirable cheese to sell for half of the year.

To make the fall and winter cheese appear to be as orange as the spring and summer cheese, they began adding dye to the cheese curds to produce a more orange color. This led to no discernible difference between cheeses produced at different times of the year.

Adding Color To Cheeses

Raw, unpasteurized and pasteurized milks can all be used to make cheeses. The milk is heated, and sometimes a small amount of acid is added so that the milk will begin to thicken. In the case for most cheeses, the milk has been left to “ripen” a while so that lactic acid is naturally produced in order to begin the process.  Rennet is then added to the milk to aid in the coagulation process, which allows the cheese curds to be separated from the liquid whey. The curds are cut and continue cooking and then the whey is strained off.

Depending on the type of cheese made, the cheese may undergo further processing. Cheddar cheese, for example, then has dye added to it. Dye made from the Annatto tree is a common one used to dye cheeses an orange color. Cheddar cheese curds are stacked on each other to produce layers, and undergo further processes, such as aging, to complete the cheese making process. Other cheeses, such as mozzarella, are ready to be eaten very soon after the curds are cut and cooked, and have no dyes added to them. Not all cheeses are dyed with the same amount or same type of dye, which leads to the variation of yellow and orange cheeses.

Can I Eat The Cheese Rind?

For those of us who love cheese that comes with a rind it’s often hard to tell whether or not we should be eating it. For those cheeses like Cheddar and Mozzarella it’s nice to not have to worry about a rind. Unless you’re a true cheese connoisseur this can be a bit of a tricky question.  In truth, the more appropriate question is not whether or not you can eat a cheese rind but more of a matter of when can you eat a cheese rind. Here are a few simple rules to follow.

Man-Made Cheese Rinds

When it comes to rinds you really must divide them up into types. Those that are made with wax or plastic are inedible for obvious reasons. You’ll find these on Gouda as well as some varieties of Colby, Brick and Cheddar. There are certain types of cheeses, like these that are aged in coatings often made from a wax or plastic and you don’t want to eat them. Other cheeses won’t have a rind at all (Feta) and therefore you won’t have to worry about whether or not it’s edible.

Rinds That Are Natural And Add To The Flavor

Cheese makers across the globe actually plan on our eating the rinds of their cheese, at least for many of the delicate versions. If you were sitting across from a cheese taster or maker and just spooning out the gooey center of a Camembert or Brie they would cringe and wonder why you were even bothering to eat it at all. The fact is the rinds on such cheeses are meant to be an addition to the flavorful scope you can enjoy in a soft, pungent cheese such as these. They are made from the same elements as the cheese itself and add quite a bit to the flavor dimensions.

Natural Rinds That Are Unappealing

Eating natural rinds on any cheese is of course, a matter of taste. One of the biggest things you’ll want to do is to take a deep sniff of the cheese and get a feel for it this way. Just like wine, the aroma of a good cheese is truly part of the tasting process. Next take a small bite and decide whether or not you enjoy the rind. Some cheeses that are of a washed rind type such as Stilton have a rind that is unappealing. It is often ugly and gritty and doesn't taste very good. Other cheeses like some made from goat’s milk and some Blue have a very moldy layer on the outside. It is a matter of choice to eat this part or not.