Cheese lab

	Time to curdle (minutes)
Curdling Agent	Chymosin	rennin	buttermilk	milk(control)
Acid	5	5
Base
pH control	15	15
Hot	5	10
Cold
Temp. Control	15	10
Avg. of controls	15	12.5

In this we asked which conditions were ideal for making cheese with enzymes. We found that the most effective conditions for making cheese were by using the curdling agent chymosin, which works best in a hot, acidic environment. Two of the curdling agents, buttermilk, and naturally occurring bacteria in milk, did not curdle in in any conditions. The other two curdling agents, rennin, and chymosin, did not curdle in basic, or cold temperatures, and curdled in under 5 minutes to curdle in an acidic environment, and under 10 minutes to curdle in a hot environment, which proves that a hot, acidic environment is ideal for curdling cheese with enzymes. Also, Chymosin is a better curdling agent than rennin because, while they both curdled in 5 minutes in an acidic environment, chymosin curdled 5 minutes faster that rennin in a hot environment. This conclusion makes sense because, chymosin is rennin that in made by fungi, and rennin is naturally found in a cow’s stomach, which is a warm, and acidic environment.

While our hypothesis was supported by our data, there may have been a few errors. One error, was that to simulate normal conditions, we put the test tube with the enzyme, and milk under our armpits, and not everybody's armpits are the same temperature. This error could have affected our data by having one curdling agent do better than another because it was in a warmer armpit. Another error was that we checked the test tubes every 5 minutes, which is very imprecise. This led to multiple tests having the same result, even though they might have been different by up to 4 minutes. To fix these errors, we should put the test tubes in lukewarm water, instead of our armpits, and checked at one minute intervals.

The purpose of this lab was the strengthen our understanding of enzymes, This lab demonstrates, a lot of stuff that we have learned in class. It show what enzymes do, and also what denaturing is, and the factors that lead to denaturation. This lab could be applied to a cheese making business that wants to find out what enzymes and and condition are most effective for cheese production.