Practical Action
The Schumacher Centre for Technology and Development
Introduction
There are hundreds of different types of cheese, but each is made using similar principles of
coagulating the proteins in milk to form curds, and then separating the curds from the liquid
whey. The coagulation of milk proteins can be done as follows:
- Using rennet (or ‘chymosin’) – an enzyme extracted from calves’ stomachs that coagulates
the proteins in milk. Rennet produced by micro-organisms is available for vegetarian
cheeses. - Fermenting to form lactic acid.
- Adding acid (e.g. lemon juice, lime juice or vinegar).
- Boiling or
- Using plant extracts (e.g. papaya sap (papain enzyme), fig bark (ficin enzyme), stems of
Bryophylum species or leaves of Calotropis procera.