Cheeses come in a wide variety of shapes and flavours. If the taste qualities depend in part on the raw material (biochemical and microbiological composition of the milk), they are strongly linked to the technology adopted.
Following is an overview of the cheese making process. Anyone of you wishing to try cheese making at home, I advise you make a paneer first so you may witness the coagulation of your milk and then, maybe, go on making a fresh lactic goat cheese, there won't be any need to purchase lactic ferments as some yogurt ( essentially a pot of lactic acid bacteria ) will do just fine. If you have any doubts or wish to know when the website will be fully live, please leave your details on the homepage contact box, I'll get back to you shortly. Let us see what cheese making is about in the simplest terms I chose.
1. The raw ingredient: milk
The first step is to choose the milk that will be used to make the cheese you desire either on taste, nutritional or availability grounds.
-On a taste ground ( or personal preference ):
Because you may not like the goat flavour, the taste of goat's milk is indeed stronger than that of cow's milk. We find it to be stronger in taste because we are also more accustomed to consuming cow's milk. One of the presenters on Sunday Brunch C4 where I was a cheese specialist for a few years did not like goat cheese for that very reason, there was little I could do about it, yet I tried my best to avoid him repeating the same thing again and again when I presented cheeses as I didn't want anything negative vented about the cheese makers I represented. If this is your case too, not too worry as luckily enough we do not all share the same preferences, I must say though the goat flavour in a fresh goat cheese is less pronounced, it is rather subtle even indeed its goat flavour is mostly released after heating the milk and its fat or during lipolysis taking place during ripening, the two fatty acids responsible for the typical goat's taste are 4-ethyl octanoic acid (13 mg/g of fat) and 4-methyl octanoic acid (80 mg/g of fat).
I understand that some of you may be driven to purchase low fat dairy items, I don't believe this is the solution to your dieting endeavours as milk fat plays an essential role in the development of the taste but also the texture of your cheese, and is actually part of your daily nutritional needs, you are better off understanding how much fat there is in a given cheese and eat more or less accordingly and watch out every fats often much less beneficial in your general eating habits. Have a look at the nutrition page on the website if you desire to know more.
-On a nutritional ground:
Whole cow's milk and goat's milk are almost identical in terms of nutritional composition. They indeed contain the same amount of macro and micronutrients. Milking goats were often used in the past as surrogate mothers for infants whose mothers had issues with breast feeding. The difference is made at the level of the molecules themselves: goat's milk proteins contain a little less casein ( the cheese yield is therefore lower than with cow's milk ) and lipid globules are smaller, they are naturally homogenised making them easier to digest, shortening drastically the time they, and the lactose goat's milk contains, spend in our intestinal tract. If you are unsure about this, try a little goat's milk on an empty stomach, you may have a good surprise!
Ewe's milk though differs from the other two by its high fat content: 100 ml of whole ewe's milk contains 7 g of lipids, more than twice as much as whole cow's and goat's milk. It is therefore more caloric with 103 kcal per 100 ml.
People who want to watch their weight should not avoid ewe's milk cheese but eat less of it.
The advantage of ewe's milk is its calcium content, higher than the other two milks (200 mg compared to 120 mg per 100 ml). That works if you choose to make a renneted cheese, indeed lowering the pH of milk ( the job of lactic ferments ) leads to solubilization of minerals which are composed of cations ( calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium ) and anions ( inorganic phosphate, chlorine and citrate). Calcium is completely solubilized at a pH of 5.2 and under. This threshold is not reached in renneted hard cheeses but it is reached and overtaken in lactic ones. You know now where to get your calcium from, fresh milk or hard cheeses.
-On an availability ground:
You are a farmer and own a dairy herd or you may live close by a farmer in that case you could approach him and ask him for some milk. How much milk would you need to make some cheese? If you look at the basic composition of milk as follows it should give you an idea of the expected yield at the end of your cheese making process. The yield is higher for lactic cheeses as they contain more water. The average composition of raw milk 87% water, 4.8% carbohydrates, 4.2% lipids, 3.2% proteins, 0.7% minerals and trace elements (including 120 mg calcium) and vitamins (A, D, B, etc.) helps understand that to produce a wheel of Comté cheese of 45 kilos, you will need 450 litres of milk.
Your supply of milk is quite far but not so far that there is a food safety risk ( pathogens proliferation ) therefore you may choose to thermise your milk. If that supply is very far, you will surely pasteurise!
Some store bought milks are very suitable for cheese making, I have often used gold top unhomogenised Jersey milk to make cheese at home, it requires more stirring to even out the fat which hasn't been homogenised at the start of the make, that is as close as you may be from a farmer making its own cheese from fresh milk. If you want to know more on heat treatment of milk go to the dedicated page on the website.
2. Curdling Once chosen the milk it is now time to curdle it ( separate the solids from the water ) by acidification solely or with additional renneting if you do not wish to make a lactic cheese. Every cheeses requires lactic ferments to reach their desired degree of acidification, there is no escaping this first stage.
Acidification may be achieved too by the adjunction of an acid liquid such as lemon juice in the case of paneer.
Not all soft cheeses are fully lactic, they may indeed be part lactic/part renneted, this is the case for Reblochon, Munster, Saint Felicien, Saint Marcellin, ... Epoisses is a fully lactic cheese ( coagulation may last up to 48 hours ) as well as 85% of the goat cheeses being produced within the chevre family.
Once reached the desired degree of acidification associated with the style of cheese you wish to produce, you may add rennet ( a coagulating agent ) if making a hard pressed cheese, this rennet may be of
animal, vegetable ( thistle, fig sap, stinging nettle, ... ) or microbial origin ( rarely used ). The most commonly used rennet in France is of animal origin, it has been for centuries, well before there were any concerns for vegetarianism. There is no changing this tradition without it changing the cheese. It is used too in the making of cheddar, another centuries old cheese.
Many present cheese makers use vegetable rennet when creating new cheeses out of concern for the vegetarian crowd. Those wanting to create pressed cheeses for long aging will use animal rennet as vegetarian rennet tend to not age very well, studies are taking place as we speak in how to improve the aging of vegetarian rennet cheeses.
During curdling the solids form a kind of gel which the cheese maker will allow to solidify until it reaches a point where it sharply breaks. The cheese maker judges of this by using some kind of a pan or by inserting a finger in the gel and lifting it until the gel cleanly breaks. This is a very satisfying experience as the milk will often behave differently depending the seasons. When reached that point, it is time to go to the next stage.
3. Draining or drying the curd
The curd must be drained to remove a more or less significant part of its humidity (what we call whey, a liquid which is still rich in nutrient commonly discarded after draining, fed to the pigs in Parma giving its particular taste to Prosciutto di Parma, or boiled to make ricotta, you may even want to refrigerate it and drink it as it is still packed with nutrients).
To dry the curd, it must be cut it into nut sized grains, heated below 42c ( hard cooked pressed ) and stirred traditionally in a figure of eight ( there was born the tradition to stir a cheese fondue in a figure of eight ) so these grains do not agglomerate in the centre of the vat as it would inhibit proper drainage and alter drastically your cheese quality. Once the grain of curds are sufficiently dried ( the cheese maker judges of this by rolling a grain in between two fingers ensuring the grain actually rolls and does not get squashed ), it is time for draining the whey by either opening the vat tap quite simply ( You see me on the picture below clearing to tap of the curd to allow for good drainage ) or hose the whey and curds out directly into molds as seen on the second picture showing the end of the hosing in the making of Tomme de Savoie.
Not all curds are heated, they may be pressed or cheddared after tap drainage. These cheeses are called hard uncooked pressed. Not all curds are cut either as shown by Camembert and Brie de Meaux, it is then ladled directly in the mold, drainage will therefore happen naturally thanks to gravity!
This draining step is more or less extensive depending on the type of cheese desired: a fresh chevre will need to be drained much less than a pressed cheese such as Comté or Beaufort.
4. Molding The curd is transferred in a mold called faisselle which may be of various shape, a barrel, a disk, a pyramid, a bell, the Eiffel Tower, a simple kitchen cloth where drainage will carry on either by gravity or by pressing. Molding dictates the final shape of the cheese. Generally speaking, the more humid a cheese is, the richer its microbiological life will be and the less long it can be stored.
Hard pressed cheeses, cooked or not, are traditionally called fromage de garde ( kept cheeses ). They are produced in regions where the climate does not allow for long keeping of soft cheeses. Comté, Beaufort are two such cheeses originating from mountainous regions with long harsh winters.
5. Salting The cheese is then salted, either by being dipped in a saline solution ( saumure or brine ), by sprinkling the salt directly by hand, or by washing them with a cloth dampened in saumure ( Comté ). Salt plays a role as a flavour enhancer, it promotes the development of the cheese rind and it is also a powerful antiseptic agent. Salt is in the spotlight as fat is, my answer is very much the same I gave you for the latter...
6. Affinage or Refining
Finally comes the final stage of refining, during which the micro-organisms contained in the cheese (bacteria, yeasts, moulds) will be able to act. Some lactic cheeses are taken out of their mold at the end of drainage, salted by hand and then placed in a haloir ( drying room ) which is well ventilated with a Relative Humidity ( RH ) of 80%. The cheeses may lose up to an extra 20% of the weight in this room. Most renneted cheeses will not require this stage as they will often have been pressed.
Those that did go in the haloir will then be moved to the refining room.
Refining is carried out in a cool room or maturing cellar and can last from a few days to several months. The ambient temperature (generally between 8 and 16°C), the humidity level averaging 90% and good ventilation are very important factors for the success of this step. The cheeses will be flipped over regularly to even out the ripening and avoid water to sink down one side only avoiding soggy bottoms. They may be washed ( Epoisses, Munster ) or even brushed ( Pont l'Eveque ).
It is during this maturation phase that the cheese acquires most of its aromas, flavours, as well as its final texture and colour.
I will write another blog soon on the many affinage technique, you may find on this website a page on washed rind cheeses which is on such technique.
The different families of cheese produced are as follows:
Fresh
Fresh aged ( chevre )
Soft white bloom
Soft washed
Hard cooked pressed
Hard uncooked pressed.
Blue veined.
At ease now, you can have a rest!
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