Learn with Bixa
49 articles organised by what you're trying to understand or solve — written conservatively, with placeholders instead of invented numbers.
Topics
What rennet is, the forms it comes in, how it works, and how cheesemakers use it.
Browse7 articlesChymosin explained: what it is, how it differs from rennet as a category, and where it fits.
Browse12 articlesCoagulation, temperature, pH, calcium and milk composition — explained approachably.
Browse1 articleWeak curd, slow sets, inconsistent batches: work through causes methodically.
Browse5 articlesHow dosage is expressed, what changes it, and how to test responsibly.
Browse4 articlesConsistency, documentation, scaling and supply for growing cheese businesses.
Browse1 articleIndividual cheeses, how they are made, and the coagulation they rely on.
Browse2 articlesFresh cheese traditions, Venezuelan cheeses, and how they are produced.
Browse3 articlesShort, shareable corrections to the most common rennet misconceptions.
Browse5 articlesDirect answers from Luis, founder of Bixa Products.
Browse0 articlesThe family, the market, and the cheesemakers we work with.
BrowseFeatured
The chemistry does not change. Mixing, temperature uniformity, how long cutting takes, documentation and ingredient supply all change — and those are what decide your consistency at volume.
Using ultra-pasteurized milk, or milk that is too cool, and then blaming the coagulant. In most failed-set calls we take, the problem is upstream of the bottle.
Queso llanero is a firm, notably salty white cheese from the Venezuelan llanos. Compared with softer fresh cheeses like queso de mano, it is drier and more heavily salted, which historically allowed it to keep in a hot climate.
Batch consistency comes from measuring what matters, writing it down, and changing one variable at a time. The main levers are milk quality and consistency, temperature and pH control, accurate dosing, and a stable coagulant supply.
The most common coagulation mistakes are using ultra-pasteurized milk, adding coagulant to milk that is too cool, diluting in chlorinated or warm water, stirring during the set, and changing more than one variable per batch.
Milk coagulation is the process of turning fluid milk into a gel. Clotting enzymes remove the protein layer that keeps casein micelles apart; the destabilised micelles then aggregate, in the presence of calcium, into the curd you cut.
Start from the dosage stated on your product label, then adjust so you hit the set time your cheese style calls for. Dosage is not a single universal number: it depends on the coagulant's clotting strength, your milk, temperature, pH and the style you are making.
IMCU stands for International Milk Clotting Units. It is the standard way to express how much milk-clotting activity a coagulant has, which is what makes dosage comparable between products instead of guesswork.
Rennet is the coagulating product you buy; chymosin is the specific milk-clotting enzyme that does most of the work inside it. So they are not competing ingredients — one is a category, the other is an enzyme.
Chymosin is the principal milk-clotting enzyme found in traditional rennet. It acts specifically on kappa-casein at the surface of the casein micelles, which destabilises them and allows milk to form a curd.
Microbial rennet is a milk-coagulating preparation produced by microbial fermentation rather than taken from animal stomachs. It does the same job in the vat: destabilising milk protein so a curd forms.
Rennet is a milk-coagulating ingredient used in cheesemaking. It contains enzymes that act on the milk protein casein so that liquid milk forms a curd firm enough to cut, drain and turn into cheese.
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