How Cheese is Made

[Laura Ingalls]

Oooo, both of those look really delicious!

[Carrie Ingalls]

Man of Cheese, I wanted to stop in to say that I am really enjoying this thread! I really like cheese...and was just this evening enjoying some munster. Do you know why it usually has orange on the borders?

I look forward to more cheesy posts in the future. Also the pictures are great! I feel like I am on a factory tour or wathcing Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (minus the land of make believe).

[BlessedCheesemaker]

Man of Cheese, I wanted to stop in to say that I am really enjoying this thread! I really like cheese...and was just this evening enjoying some munster. Do you know why it usually has orange on the borders?

Thanks. As far as the orange rind on Munster, I know that for our traditional French style Munster cheese we apply a special bacteria wash that gives the rind an red/orange color. These bacteria soften the cheese and give it the true French Munster stinky and strong flavor. This is probably not the same kind of Munster you ate, but I assume they took the orange rinds from the traditional style and add food coloring to make the American version look similar.

[Carrie Ingalls]

Man of Cheese, I wanted to stop in to say that I am really enjoying this thread! I really like cheese...and was just this evening enjoying some munster. Do you know why it usually has orange on the borders?

Thanks. As far as the orange rind on Munster, I know that for our traditional French style Munster cheese we apply a special bacteria wash that gives the rind an red/orange color. These bacteria soften the cheese and give it the true French Munster stinky and strong flavor. This is probably not the same kind of Munster you ate, but I assume they took the orange rinds from the traditional style and add food coloring to make the American version look similar.

Hmm, interesting...yeah, "stinky and strong flavor" is not usually what comes to mind when I think of Munster, but now I want to try some some French style Munster. I may have to see if I can find some your family's in PA in the near future. (I already have a couple places to check out based on listings on your website).

So, do the bacteria and special cultures have to be listed on the ingredients list? Or are they like my mom's tomato sauce? (she would hide all manner of pureed veggies and what not in that stuff and only tell you if you asked her about it when you had her alone and only if you didn't make any comments about it to the rest of the kids).

[BlessedCheesemaker]

Hmm, interesting...yeah, "stinky and strong flavor" is not usually what comes to mind when I think of Munster, but now I want to try some some French style Munster. I may have to see if I can find some your family's in PA in the near future. (I already have a couple places to check out based on listings on your website).

I just did a little more research on this (after I posted, of course) and the mild American version is called Muenster, while the French style is Munster. Muenster is colored with annatto to give the rind an orange color. Annatto is also used to color cheddar cheese, but we don't use any added colors to any of our cheeses. You can always ask your favorite store why they don't carry our cheese

So, do the bacteria and special cultures have to be listed on the ingredients list? Or are they like my mom's tomato sauce? (she would hide all manner of pureed veggies and what not in that stuff and only tell you if you asked her about it when you had her alone and only if you didn't make any comments about it to the rest of the kids).

We list cultured milk as one of our ingredients, so that includes all the cultures/bacteria we add to the cheese. We could have a separate item for the washes we give to the cheese, but it is actually part of the affinage - or care of the cheese while it ages - and not really part of the production.

[Humby]

I love the Pacman cheese!

[BlessedCheesemaker]

Thanks everyone who voted this thread into the Topic Hall of Fame.
Two pictures from cheese making today:

fresh cheddar curds

My dad packing the curds into the hoops.

[snubs]

I still want to come make cheese with you guys!

[bookworm]

I went cheese tasting at a family farm a couple days ago and I thought of this thread.
I thought “I wonder if this is what BlessedCheesemaker’s farm is like.”
Then I thought “This could actually be BlessedCheesemaker’s farm since I don’t know where he is! ”

[~JCGJ~]

I'm gonna say he's in Wisconsin, because Cheese.

[BlessedCheesemaker]

You can check my profile page to find out

Western Pennsylvania

[bookworm]

It wasn't then. That would have been crazy.

[BlessedCheesemaker]

Why is it Blue?
I’ve been meaning to write up how we make our blue cheese for a while. Actually, I thought I might have already and forgotten about it but I couldn’t find it anywhere.
Making blue cheese is actually one of the easiest varieties. To begin with we add a special culture that is actually the same as penicillin. That culture is what caused the blue molds to grow giving blue cheese its name and flavor. The next step is the same as all other cheeses, adding rennet and cutting the curds once they set (get thick). We actually want larger curds for the blue, so we use a knife to cut the curds into about one inch cubes instead of the normal 3/8 inch or smaller cubes that our curd knife makes.

Blue cheese gets very little additional heat and only a little bit of stirring. The goal is to get big puffy curds that look and feel like marshmallows. Once the curds feel about right, we use a cloth to collect all the curds into a pile and then scoop them into hoops.

We let the curds settle into hoops for a day, redressing them (flipping the wheels inside the hoops) several times to allow the wheels to form evenly. Once the wheels are well formed, we take them out of the hoops and rub salt all over the top, bottom, and sides of each wheel. We do this several times over the course of the first week to allow the wheels to soak in enough salt to act as a preservative.

After a week has passed, we take a steel rod (kind of like a knitting needle) and poke holes every few inches through the side of each wheel. The penicillin mold only grows when it is exposed to oxygen, so we have to provide some air passages for the blue mold to grow. We poke the wheels again two weeks after the first day of production. Then we age the blue cheese in a cooler for about 60-120 days. We have to keep our blue cheese in a separate cooler, or else the blue molds spread and start growing on our other cheeses.

Then when the cheese is aged enough, we cut the wheels up into wedges and have a beautiful creamy blue cheese. I didn't like blue cheese when I was younger, and I still don't care for it that much, but I have eaten it more now that we are making it. The interesting thing about this recipe is that we use for making our blue cheese came from Argentina. My parents won a scholarship to learn about cheesemaking and they visited a cheesemaker in Argentina last February to improve our process of making blue cheese.

[snubs]

Wow, that's pretty interesting and cool! But also gross. *does not like blue cheese*

[Catspaw]

I also do not like to eat blue cheese, but it was interesting to read about making it. It looks fun with the blue swirling through it, but I still don't plan to eat it.

[Marvin D.]

It always looked like mold to me when I was a little lad, so I continue to refrain from eating said cheese. Sadly, I can no longer feign ignorance and assume it's an unknown substance, so pardon me whilst I erase the last few minutes from my memory so I can continue to live in bliss.

[Woody]

It's not the exact same thing as penicillin, though, right? I think I read in Biology yesterday that it's in the same genus, but not the same species, and wouldn't act as an antibiotic, correct?

Sorry, random sidetrack. Glad to see you're still adding to this thread! I was excited to see there was an unread post in here

[BlessedCheesemaker]

Yes Woody, we add penicillium roqueforti to get the blue molds, which I believe is not the same that is used as an antibiotic.