Investigate the time it takes for the different enzymes rennet, maxiren and fromase to coagulate.

MATERIALS:  

1cm cube of Rennet

1cm cube of Maxiren

1cm cube of Fromase

1cm cube of Water

40cm cubed of semi-skimmed Milk

1cm cube syringes – for measuring out the enzymes

10cm cubed syringes – for measuring milk

4 Test tubes

Stop clock

METHOD:

1. Measure out a put the 10cm cubed of milk into each on of the test tubes
2. Label them A, B, C, and D and put the 1cm cubed of rennet into A, the 1cm cubed of maxiren into B, then put the 1cm cubed of fromase into C and the 1cm cubed of water into D.
3. Record the time it takes to for the milk to coagulate, it can be distinguished when particles begin to adhere to the side of the test tube and then when the particles form a solid this is when the curd has been formed.

HYPOTHESIS:  

I feel that the Maxiren will work the best as it is the enzyme which is regularly used to manufacture the production of cheese. As it is used because it coagulates milk at a fast speed so it will be the most efficient enzyme to use for the production of cheese. I feel the Fromase will be next efficient enzyme to use for coagulating the milk, as it is commonly used within the manufacture of cheese. The reason I feel the rennet in this circumstance will not be as efficient, as we are not using a water bath; so the write temperature for the write conditions for the rennet to work could not be achieved. As rennet is found in the stomachs of young mammals i.e. calves and the calves’ stomach temperatures are at around 37°C and room temperature is far below this so the rennet will take longer to work.

RESULTS:

CONCLUSION:

My results show that the Maxiren worked the best out of all of the enzymes which I used. This proves that the hypothesis I had chosen was then proved correct. I feel this may have been due to the fact that the temperature of the lab provided efficient conditions for the Maxiren to work fully. Also this enzyme is more readily used for the manufacture of cheese so it meant that it would have worked most efficiently. Although it may be more expensive the fact that it has coagulated in 20 minute shows how much more efficient maxiren is. The results also show that the fromase came second in the experiment which again proves my hypothesis correct. Although the fromase did not completely coagulate it was almost fully solid so this is why again this enzyme is readily used within the manufacture of cheese. I feel the reason why this was the result of the experiment is because these enzymes have probably been genetically modified so as they work that bit faster than rennet. As the production of cheese is fierce and time is money so these modified enzymes need to be used. The reason the rennet did not work as well and hardly any change was observed I feel was because the lab did not provide sufficient conditions for it to work. As again to temperature for the rennet to work efficiently will be 35-40°C.

EVALUATION:

Factors that could be changed to improve upon this experiment are changing the temperatures of the different enzymes being used to see if that speeds up or slows it down. As if this was done it would make the experiment fair as it provides sufficient conditions for the enzyme rennet to work so the results could then make a valid comparison.

We could have also used a wider range of enzymes to see completely which enzyme works the best. To improve the experiment done further, however, we could stir the milk in with the enzyme and we could have also done the experiment for longer as this would have shown more change within the fromase to see exactly how long that took fully.