How Cheese is Made

[Humby]

Do you get big muscles from working with cheese?

[BlessedCheesemaker]

What in the World is Affinage?
Our cheese is made from raw milk, and according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) all raw milk cheeses must be aged for 60 days before then can be sold. The FDA says this allows enough time for the good bacteria to kill off any possible bad bacteria. We make our cheese after a more European style, so rather than suffocate our cheese in vacuum pack bags right after they come out of the press, we place them on shelves made from local maple wood and allow them to develop a natural rind. Affinage is the process of caring for cheese as it matures and develops its awesome flavor.

Every other day we turn the cheese wheels as they age, helping the rind to develop and the wheels to stay even. If any of the wheels have mold growing on them we wash and scrub them off with water as needed.

We have two different coolers, one set at 55 degrees and another set at 40 degrees. All of cheeses are placed in the warmer cooler to start with and then are moved to the colder one once they reach a certain age according to their recipe. Some varieties are kept in the warmer cooler, which I will explain more when I talk about making Gouda and Swiss.
These wheels need scrubbed:

All of our cheeses are aged 60 days, but we keep aging them until we sell them. Since 2007, we have only had one year where our cheddar wheels have lasted for two years before we sell them all. There are a few restaurants that ask us to save wheels for them so that they age for two years.

Before we sell the wheels at farmers markets and to a few stores, we do package them in vacuum packs. We tried coating them in wax for the first year, but the wax would crack and some customers complained that this let mold grow on the cheese inside. For restaurants we package our cheeses as whole wheels or wrap them in freezer paper for chefs who don't like plastic. Otherwise, we cut each wheel into around 16 wedges to make half pound pieces and then package, weigh, and label them. These wedges are ready to go to market or be delivered to a store for our customers.

NEXT TIME: It's so Gouda

Do you get big muscles from working with cheese?

Actually I get my "big" muscles from carrying two five gallon buckets up to the shed to feed calves and from carrying the new calves around.

[Woody]

If you're the ones eating it, does it still have to be aged for 60 days?

And if not, do you?

[Mimi]

This is so interesting to read! Thanks so much for sharing.

[Laura Ingalls]

How often do you make each variety of cheese? Does it just depend on how well they are selling? How many pounds/wheels of cheese does one recipe make?

[BlessedCheesemaker]

It's so Gouda
In addition to using different cultures, different processes during cheese making are used to make different varieties. The first step to making creamy Gouda cheese is to drain out 40% of the whey and add warm water in its place. This gives us a moister cheese. After stirring for several hours, like cheddar, the next step in making Gouda is to dam the curds. We push all of the curds to one side of the cheese vat while they are still floating in the whey. We set up plastic boards on the side and top to press the curds together. After placing weights on top, we let the curds press for a half hour before draining the whey.

Once the whey is gone, we remove the boards and cut the pressed curds up into cubes to put them in hoops. The wheels then get put in the cheese press, as I described before. Gouda doesn't get pressed as hard or long as Cheddar, and we take it out of press that night instead of the next day.

You may have noticed that there was no step to add salt to Gouda. All of our cheese require salt as a preservative, so we have a tank in our cooler that has a saturated solution of salt in whey. We soak the wheels in the brine for around 36 hours. Gouda is aged in the colder cheese cooler and then cut up and sold to our customers.

Swiss cheese is made in about the same manner: except for the addition of some special cultures that release gas as the cheese is aging to make the holes. Our Swiss cheese variety is aged in the warmer cooler so that the cultures can work to produce the gas bubbles and give us perfect Swiss cheese.

If you're the ones eating it, does it still have to be aged for 60 days? And if not, do you?

No, because it is for our own consumption we can eat our cheese before it reaches the 60 day mark.

How often do you make each variety of cheese? Does it just depend on how well they are selling? How many pounds/wheels of cheese does one recipe make?

We try to plan one month of cheese making at a time based on what sold over the past month and what we are running low on. Right now we are making a batch of Gouda every week because we are running low. Some of our more specialty varieties, like our blue cheese we only make small batches once a month. We used two milkings worth of milk to make cheese on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, so how much we get usually depends on how much the cows give. Our cheese yield is usually around ten percent, but it varies with the variety as well. Our biggest batch so far was last Friday when we had over 2500 lbs of milk and ended up with nearly 325 lbs in 35 wheels of cheese.

I think that wraps it up for now. Eventually I may get to writing about blue cheese, feta, and French-style Munster, but I need to take some more pictures first. Questions are always welcome and I may continue to just post random photos from cheese making days every once in a while. Thanks for all of good questions and comments, and I hope everyone enjoyed learning how my family makes cheese!

[snubs]

Very interesting. I definitely would like to hear more when you have the pictures and time. =]

[Humby]

That's a lot of cheese! Maybe when I'm up in PA I can buy some of your Clover Cheese. If I can find it. Then again... I wouldn't want your cheesiness to rub off on me.

[Laura Ingalls]

I've really enjoyed reading about the process and seeing the pictures! Thanks for sharing!

[Catspaw]

I've really enjoyed reading about the process and seeing the pictures! Thanks for sharing!

This is exactly what I wanted to say! I have definitely learned details that I never knew. It looks like you and your family are never bored!

[BlessedCheesemaker]

That's a lot of cheese! Maybe when I'm up in PA I can buy some of your Clover Cheese. If I can find it. Then again... I wouldn't want your cheesiness to rub off on me.

I've really enjoyed reading about the process and seeing the pictures! Thanks for sharing!

This is exactly what I wanted to say! I have definitely learned details that I never knew. It looks like you and your family are never bored!

Thanks ladies. It was fun to write. Now I have a place to direct people when ever they ask about my username.
I'm glad everyone learned something from it. That is never a problem we have Catspaw

[Termite]

Now I want to try your cheese.

[BlessedCheesemaker]

Well I just spent all afternoon packaging cheese for our once-a-month deliveries to the Pittsburgh area. I had to take some pictures for our website, and I decided to post them here as well.
This is our baby Swiss style:

Our Emmanthaler (traditional) Swiss style with a few holes:

Our mild Gouda style:

And here is one I just took for fun, Pacman cheese

[Stop Wooton' Around]

I could do this with honey considering my dad is a beekeeper but I don't feel like taking pictures. He is a *hobby* beekeeper, even though we did 5 ton of honey last year. I help him quite a bit with the business. Cheese making business looks quite interesting . The one bad thing with that is you would have to worry about germs and food regulations from the state whereas honey is listed as agriculture because we do not process any of it and it is so high in acid it will never spoil. Raw honey will turn to sugar but it will always be good as long as it is truly honey (told by moisture level). They found honey that was still edible in the Egyptian tombs.

[Jesus' Princess]

I could do this with honey considering my dad is a beekeeper but I don't feel like taking pictures. He is a *hobby* beekeeper, even though we did 5 ton of honey last year. I help him quite a bit with the business. Cheese making business looks quite interesting . The one bad thing with that is you would have to worry about germs and food regulations from the state whereas honey is listed as agriculture because we do not process any of it and it is so high in acid it will never spoil. Raw honey will turn to sugar but it will always be good as long as it is truly honey (told by moisture level). They found honey that was still edible in the Egyptian tombs.

5 tons? Wow! Do you guys sell it then?

[Stop Wooton' Around]

I could do this with honey considering my dad is a beekeeper but I don't feel like taking pictures. He is a *hobby* beekeeper, even though we did 5 ton of honey last year. I help him quite a bit with the business. Cheese making business looks quite interesting . The one bad thing with that is you would have to worry about germs and food regulations from the state whereas honey is listed as agriculture because we do not process any of it and it is so high in acid it will never spoil. Raw honey will turn to sugar but it will always be good as long as it is truly honey (told by moisture level). They found honey that was still edible in the Egyptian tombs.

5 tons? Wow! Do you guys sell it then?

Yes, we even bought some from another beekeeper and we only have a handful of 5 gal buckets left. Makes about 30k a year, not bad for a hobby. (Helps for the college fund)

[Jesus' Princess]

I could do this with honey considering my dad is a beekeeper but I don't feel like taking pictures. He is a *hobby* beekeeper, even though we did 5 ton of honey last year. I help him quite a bit with the business. Cheese making business looks quite interesting . The one bad thing with that is you would have to worry about germs and food regulations from the state whereas honey is listed as agriculture because we do not process any of it and it is so high in acid it will never spoil. Raw honey will turn to sugar but it will always be good as long as it is truly honey (told by moisture level). They found honey that was still edible in the Egyptian tombs.

5 tons? Wow! Do you guys sell it then?

Yes, we even bought some from another beekeeper and we only have a handful of 5 gal buckets left. Makes about 30k a year, not bad for a hobby. (Helps for the college fund)

Wow, that's really neat! Beekeeping and making honey is something we've never really tried, (my mom didn't like the thought of having bees around) but it seems like an interesting process for sure.

[Metal15]

Wow, this looks so cool!!! And tasty... Thanx for sharing!

[Marvin D.]

I could do this with honey considering my dad is a beekeeper but I don't feel like taking pictures. He is a *hobby* beekeeper, even though we did 5 ton of honey last year. I help him quite a bit with the business. Cheese making business looks quite interesting . The one bad thing with that is you would have to worry about germs and food regulations from the state whereas honey is listed as agriculture because we do not process any of it and it is so high in acid it will never spoil. Raw honey will turn to sugar but it will always be good as long as it is truly honey (told by moisture level). They found honey that was still edible in the Egyptian tombs.

5 tons? Wow! Do you guys sell it then?

Yes, we even bought some from another beekeeper and we only have a handful of 5 gal buckets left. Makes about 30k a year, not bad for a hobby. (Helps for the college fund)

Wow, that's really neat! Beekeeping and making honey is something we've never really tried, (my mom didn't like the thought of having bees around) but it seems like an interesting process for sure.

SWA, JP, this is a cheese-making thread, not a beekeeping thread, so please don't get off-topic here
/backseat modding

That being said, the Gouda cheese looks delicious

[BlessedCheesemaker]

We made our pepper cheese on Monday. This variety is quite simple to make. We add cultures and wait, add rennet, cut the curds, stir and then heat to around 100 degrees. Then we drain the whey and add peppers to the curds before we put them into hoops. Usually we use a pepper salsa that one of our fellow farmers market vendors produces. However, she does not have enough peppers to make it until the end of the summer, so this batch we used some dried peppers that we bought. We also add salt to the curds with the peppers.

This cheese gets pressed overnight to make sure it will be firm. Here is a picture from one of the times we take the wheels out and flip them upside down to make sure that they press evenly and smoothly. This is called redressing.

Then yesterday morning we removed all 24 wheels from the press, weighed them and put them in the cooler to age.

I also took some promo shots of our basil, garlic, and tomato cheese.

I could do this with honey considering my dad is a beekeeper but I don't feel like taking pictures. He is a *hobby* beekeeper, even though we did 5 ton of honey last year. I help him quite a bit with the business. Cheese making business looks quite interesting . The one bad thing with that is you would have to worry about germs and food regulations from the state whereas honey is listed as agriculture because we do not process any of it and it is so high in acid it will never spoil. Raw honey will turn to sugar but it will always be good as long as it is truly honey (told by moisture level). They found honey that was still edible in the Egyptian tombs.

That would be interesting (in it's own topic ) My neighbor does beekeeping; his bees often fly down and visit our apple trees and flowers when they are in bloom.