Cheese

Cheese is made from three things: milk, bacteria, and rennet.

The milk

Cheese can be made from the milk of any dairy animal. A dairy animal is an animal kept for its milk: cow, goat, sheep, buffalo.

Goat cheese is made from goat milk. Roquefort is made from sheep milk. And traditional mozzarella is made from buffalo milk. Most cheese comes from cow milk.

To make a cheese, the process begins by warming the milk.

The bacteria

Bacteria are added to the warm milk because bacteria eat the sugar in the milk and produce acid. The acid makes the environment challenging for harmful bacteria to grow. And the acid helps rennet, the next ingredient, do its work.

Bacteria also produce other compounds that give each cheese its own flavor. Those compounds can make a cheese taste buttery, nutty, or sharp. This is one reason cheeses taste different from each other.

The rennet

After bacteria, rennet is added next. Rennet is an enzyme. An enzyme is a substance that causes a change to happen. The change rennet causes is making the proteins in milk clump together.

When the proteins clump, the milk separates into a solid and a liquid. The solid part is called curds. The liquid part is called whey.

Rennet traditionally came from the stomach lining of a young calf, lamb, or goat. An animal still nursing produces this rennet so the milk it drinks will thicken and stay in its stomach long enough to be digested. People learned that the rennet thickens milk outside an animal.

Today most cheese is made with rennet produced by bacteria or yeast grown in large sealed tanks rather than taken from an animal. Some cheese is made with rennet from plants such as fig sap or thistle.

Curds and Whey

After the curds form, the whey is drained away. Whey is used in ricotta cheese, fertilizer, and as animal feed.

The curds are salted and pressed into a mold that gives the cheese its shape.

The following steps determine what kind of cheese the curds become: the temperature the curds are cooked at, how much whey is squeezed out, the salt, how long the cheese ages, and if anything else is added or done.

Harder cheeses have their curds cooked at higher temperatures and have a lot of their whey squeezed out. Curds for Parmesan, Gruyère, Swiss, aged cheddar, and Romano cheeses are cooked at a hot temperature.

Softer cheeses have their curds cooked at lower temperatures and only some of their whey is squeezed out. Curds for Brie, Camembert, chèvre, and cottage cheese are barely warmed.

How much salt and how the salt is added determines what kind of cheese is made. For example, feta curds are soaked in salty brine, Parmesan curds are rubbed with salt on the outside, and cheddar has salt mixed directly into the curds.

The length of time a cheese ages differs. Mozzarella can be eaten within days of it being made. Parmesan, Gouda, cheddar, Gruyère, Manchego, and Comté age for years, two to five years or more. Bacteria and the enzymes in these cheeses keep working during their aging process.

Some cheeses have an extra step. Blue cheese has a mold mixed into it. Brie has a different mold sprayed on the outside.

Mozzarella curds are heated and pulled until the cheese becomes smooth and stretchy.

Even though cheese is made from milk, it can last a longer time than milk. This happens because the acid from adding bacteria, the salt, and squeezing out water when the whey drains preserves the cheese.

No matter what cheese you enjoy eating, all cheese begins the same way, with the ingredients milk, bacteria, and rennet.

You are welcome to eat cheese.

Stacy 🌺

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I share my experiences and my perspective. Eating and healing look different for everyone. If you are struggling with food or your relationship with your body, please find support. You don’t have to do this alone.