Adding Calcium Chloride to pasteurised and/or homogenised milk you buy from a shop helps restore calcium balance back to the milk, to create a firmer curd.
Use 0.5ml per litre of milk. Add to milk before adding culture and/or rennet.
If you are not as fortunate as us in that you don't have a dairy cow to provide you with fresh, pure, raw milk, then you must resort to using store-bought milk.
If this is the case, in your cheese-making you will more than likely need to add Calcium Chloride to rebalance the calcium content of milk, as the manufacturing processes of pasteurisation, heating and rapidly cooling the milk, and then homogenisation, all decreases the amount of calcium in the milk and can affect the clotting properties.
The necessity will be noticeable from a slower coagulation of the milk after adding the Rennet. Also a softer, less stable curd may be noticeable and in some cases where the calcium levels are extremely low, there may be no coagulation at all.
Adding Calcium Chloride to your milk brings the calcium content back into balance and will result in a firmer curd, that you will find much easier to cut and work with.
Therefore, calcium chloride is sometimes added to processed (pasteurised/homogenised) milk to restore the natural balance between calcium and protein in casein for the purposes of making cheeses such as Brie, Pelardon and Stiltonm and often also needed when using Goat's milk. By adding calcium chloride to the milk before adding the coagulant, calcium levels are restored. Also, it is frequently added to sliced apples to maintain texture.
Calcium chloride is a non-living (or inanimate) compound; a salt with the chemical formula CaCl2. It is a colourless crystalline solid at room temperature, highly soluble in water.
About Mad Millie
Mad Millie is a young Kiwi company with a passion and love for all things delicious and handcrafted. We also love to share our passion with you by giving you the opportunity to do this yourself at home.
We're famous for our cheese making kits which allow you to make an array of gourmet cheeses such as feta, cheddar, halloumi, mozzarella, Camembert and more, as well as including making butter! Homemade cheese is something we want to prove can be done in your kitchen with your own hands! Plus they make fantastic gifts too.
We don't stop there though. What better way to accompany your gourmet cheese than with homemade sausages, cider, beer, yoghurt and more. Our Fresh Sausage Kit is packed with homemade sausage making recipes, our Boutique Brewery Kits allow you to make refreshing cider or beer to help quench your thirst and we look after you too with kits such as Greek Yoghurt and Kefir that are full of healthy benefits!
The beauty of making things yourself is that you know exactly what goes in it, you can avoid nasty additives and you can make it just how you like it! Don't just take our word for it though we've had others tell us how much they enjoy our kits too.
We've made it easy, quick and provided you with anything specialised, so why don't you give it a try!
