Humans have been making cheese for thousands of years. With the emergence of technology, cheese making has been made faster and with less manpower. Nevertheless, the step-by-step process on how cheese is made has not had any difference from during the ancient times.
If you want to know how cheese is made, then you’ve come to the right place. This article will give you a step-by-step procedure to making cheese.
Here are the basic ingredients for making cheese:
- Fresh milk
- Citric acid, vinegar or living bacteria
- Rennet
- Salt
Step by Step Procedure on How Cheese is Made
Step #1: Warm the fresh milk.
Most cheese makers use fresh milk direct from the cow’s udder. What they do is to put the fresh milk in milk trailers or containers. After which, the milk is transported and transferred into a milk pasteuriser, which keeps it at the ideal temperature and pasteurised.
Nevertheless, if you are unable to get milk straight from the udder, you can also use fresh milk right from the supermarket. Most of these milks are already cooled, so you may need to use a large pot and slowly warm the milk on a stovetop.
Step #2: Culturing
The next step in making cheese is acidifying the milk, which is done in a variety of ways. One way is by putting acid such as vinegar or citric acid directly on to the milk in order to get the correct acidity. This process is called direct acidification, which results in cheese such as ricotta and mascarpone.
Another way to acidify the milk is by adding cultures or bacteria. In this stage, pasteurised milk is transferred into a cheese vat. With enough time, ideal temperature and lack of competitor bacteria, the cultures will grow and consume the lactose in the milk, thereby fermenting lactic acid in the process.
Step #3: Coagulation
During the fermentation process, coagulant like rennet is added on the mixture. This is done only when there is sufficient lactic acid in the mixture. Doing this will cause all the proteins in the milk to link together, with due time, the mixture will have a gel-like consistency. Curds will usually form over a period of time.
Step #4: Draining
Once the cheese curd is ready, the cheese whey will be released. To prevent decomposition, water is removed from the mixture. Traditional cheese makers often wrap the mixture in a cheese cloth and hang it to get rid of the water. After the cheese curd is partially dehydrated, the next step to take is scalding.
Step #6: Scalding
Scalding the process wherein the temperature of the cheese vat is raised to approximately 39 °C or 102 °F to scald the curd particles. The cheese maker checks the consistency of the cheese curd, once it passes the consistency test, the curd is cut into the right sizes using a cheese harp or curd cutter.
For more information on how cheese is made, please feel free to look for other articles in our website. If you want to start a cheese-making business, it is best to get help from an expert in the field. Contact us now to learn what you need to do in order to start your business right. Learn the first steps to take and the dairy equipment you’ll need.
