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My container is tapered, which has worked fine but a straight one would work best.Ĭheese cloth This is not what you are thinking. Save the bottom you cut off to use it as a runner. All you need to do is remove the bottom and put a bunch of holes in it. I'm talking about a container to shape your cheese. In the next step I'll go over how I built my cheese press.Ĭheese molds Not the bad kind of mold. Your pot should also be large enough to hold 2 gallons of milk.Ĭheese Press You will need to press your cheese. If you can find it in powder form you can make your own.ĭouble Boiler You don't want to put milk directly on the heat, a double boiler is needed to prevent scalding. I use a lab grade glass thermometer.Ĭalcium Chloride Store bought milk is homogenized and it affects the calcium in the process. Thermometer You will need a good accurate thermometer. Its a flaked salt and melts easy, but its expensive and I haven't had a problem with regular salts. Salt A lot of places tell you to buy cheese salt. Without it, you will have a basic white cheese. Its much easier to use and measure than the tablet rennet.Ĭultures You will need a culture to ripen and flavor the cheese you want to make. Rennet Rennet is needed to separate the curds and whey. 2 gallons of milk will get you about a 2lb wheel of cheese. Milk Whole milk, the more fat content the more cheese you get. From there, the cheese travels to the cheese plant and the magic begins.What's required for making hard cheeses? Here's a list of what you will need to make a hard cheese. Want to see it in action? We sent a team to Fiscalini Farms in Modesto, California, to learn more about how they make their award-winning cheeses.Īccording to dairy farmer Brian Fiscalini, world-class cheese comes from stellar milk. Once the cheese is shaped, it may be aged for a while before its ready to eat. While the cheese is pressed, more whey comes out, so it eventually becomes the shape and consistency of cheeses we know. This occurs with mozzarella and Swiss cheeses. The curd is pressed into a hoop, which is brined.This is the case for Cheddar and Colby cheeses. The curd is salted, and then it’s pressed in a form.At this point, the curd is separated from the whey, and it’s time to start making the cheese look more like cheese! Depending on the type of cheese, this can happen one of two ways: Once the curds are cut, they’re stirred and heated to release even more whey. Drier cheeses are often cut more to form smaller curds, so more of the moisture comes out, while curds cut less are larger and are moister. Once it starts to gel, the cheesemakers cut it, which allows the whey to come out. The amount of rennet and time needed for it to separate into curds can vary from cheese to cheese. Rennet causes the milk to gel similar to yogurt, before the curds (the solids) separate from the whey (the liquid). After the starter culture, a few other ingredients are added including rennet and, depending on the type of cheese, color - which is why Cheddar is orange. For example, Swiss cheese uses one type of culture, while Brie and Blue use others. Different types of cultures are used to create different types of cheese. This process helps determine the cheese’s flavor and texture.

The starter cultures ferment the lactose, milk’s natural sugar, into lactic acid. Pasteurization is necessary because raw milk can harbor dangerous bacteria, and pasteurization kills those bacteria.Īt this point, good bacteria or “starter cultures” are added to the milk. After the milk is standardized, it’s pasteurized.

This is important because cheesemakers need to start with the same base milk in order to make a consistent cheese. Once it passes, the milk goes through a filter and is then standardized – that is, they may add in more fat, cream or protein. Once it’s brought to the cheese plant, the cheesemakers check the milk and take samples to make sure it passes quality and purity tests. What is cheese made of? It all starts with collecting milk from dairy farms. From cow to curd, there are many steps along the way to make the cheeses we all know and love.