Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am a home cheese maker and rennet is an essential part of the procedure. Stronger rennet comes from the animal sources but due to many safety concerns I skip those options and have used this one for all the cheeses I have made. For those who wonder what there is inside the bottles it consists of water, sodium chloride, acetic acid, sodium acetate, extra heat labile microbial coagulant. It has no coloring, preservative, additives or animal byproducts. As far as I know this is the healthiest rennet option in the market. Having gone through 3-4 bottles within the last year, here are the two points I want to share with potential customers: 1- Do not buy it from amazon. Amazon is great for almost everything but when it comes to cheesemaking ingredients, they are somehow sold at hefty prices. Go try cheesemaking.com, cheeseconnection or cultures for health for the ingredients. They all charge shipping compared to the free shipping options at amazon but since rennet is not the only thing you need you can always combine several ingredients and save from the shipping. (at the time of writing this review same rennet is sold at $6.5 in cheesemaking.com compared to over $10 in amazon) 2- Ignore the double strength phrase on the descriiption. I use it as normal strength and get very good results. 1/2 tsp for 4 gallons of milk is all you need. (You dissolve this in half a cup of water and mix well in a minute then stop mixing and leave it untouched for at least half an hour or until you get clean break with the finger test). Adding some Calcium chloride (1/4 tsp 33% CaCl2 solution in 1 gallon of milk) may improve your curd quality if you use store bought milk. One batch should be good for at least 6 months when properly stored. If you feel that the strength is going down, then either increase the incubation duration or the amount of rennet you use instead of trashing the old batch. But in the end, like everything else it is somewhat trial and error to get the right consistency. I will keep using this item and recommend it to anyone who is into cheese making