How Cheese is Made

[BlessedCheesemaker]

I have received a number of questions about my username and whether I really do make cheese. Yes, I live on a dairy farm where my family turns the milk that our cows produce into cheese. I am creating this thread so I have one place to refer everyone to when they ask me how we make cheese. I am planning on doing a series of posts about how we make cheese on my family's farm.

Got Milk?
The best cheese is made from the highest quality milk. I will start with our cows. We have a large variety of breeds of cattle, from Jerseys to Ayrshires to Milking Shorthorns and any kind of cross in between. Our cows are out on pasture as much as possible, getting the best nutrients to make the perfect milk for our cheese. We will milk them in the morning of the cheese making and use that milk for making cheese.

Our cheese is a raw milk cheese, meaning that there is no processing of the milk before it is used for cheese making. The milk is pumped directly from the milking parlor, through a filter and into our cheese vat. The perfect temperature for cheese making is around 90 degrees Farenheit. The cows body temperature is 101 degrees and by the time the milk travels from the parlor through stainless steel pipes, it is right around 90 degrees.

We measure the amount of milk in the cheese vat and check the pH. We use pH to tell us when the milk has reached the right stage for each step of the process. These are cheese cultures, special bacteria that turn milk into different varieties of cheese. Using the amount of milk in the vat, we calculate how much culture we should add. My dad has written up recipes for each type of cheese that we make, saying how much of each culture should be added per 1000 pounds of milk. we weigh them out on a gram scale and them sprinkle them across the milk. We stir the cultures into the milk and then wait for a half hour to an hour to allow the cultures to work before moving to the next step.


NEXT TIME: Curds and Whey
Feel free to post any questions you may have and I will try to answer them or find an answer!

You must break into two password protected websites based solely on cryptic clues. In each website you will find one half of a clue, which together reveal the next clue. The login page is here: http://www.authpro.com/auth/Moosewood/

Username #1: Fill in the blank: Loth______

Password #1: The Ring of Water

Username #2: Traitor to the Fellowship

Password #2: The number of books in The Lord of the Rings

[Pengwin]

Do you guys sell the cheese you make?

[Anna><>]

What different types of cheese do you make?

[Laura Ingalls]

This will be interesting to read, BC. I've watched/helped make cheese a couple of times, but only in small batches.

I remember you saying you only make cheese on certain days of the week. What do you do with the rest of the milk - do y'all sell that as gallons of raw milk?

[BlessedCheesemaker]

Do you guys sell the cheese you make?

Yes, We sell it at several farmers' markets and stores.

What different types of cheese do you make?

We make a over a dozen varieties including Cheddar, Gouda, and Swiss. I'll talk more about our varieties in later posts.

[~JCGJ~]

As far as I know, a cow must have a calf before they will produce milk, am I correct?

(I will post my next question in spoiler code, just in case someone might be offended...)

Are your cows artificially inseminated, or do you have (a) bull(s)?
What do you do with the calves once they're born?

Or am I just completely wrong in my assumptions (which often does end up being the case )?

[BlessedCheesemaker]

Curds and Whey
During that thirty to sixty minute wait, the culture bacteria are multiplying and making the milk more acidic. The next step is to add rennet. Rennet is added to coagulate the acidic milk. Coagulate just means that the milk gets firm like jello or yogurt, so that we can separate the curds and whey. We use real rennet rather than vegetable enzymes, which are actually produced from genetically engineered fungus. We pour the rennet across the milk and stir it in. Then we wait another half hour.

This is my dad not me
Once the milk is thick enough, we use a special tool, called a cheese harp to cut the curds into small cubes. This is what separates the curds and whey. The curds become small cubes of soft jello and the whey is the leftover liquid.

After a few minutes for the curds to rest, we start stirring and heating the cheese vat. We stir the curds to make sure that they heat up evenly. The heating process helps the whey to separate from the curds, and controls the biological activity of the cultures.

This is where the cheese making process begins to be different for the different varieties. I am going to follow the process for making Cheddar cheese for now, but I can come back and go through a Gouda/Swiss process if there is interest. After a few hours of stirring and heat the curds up to the right temperature, it is time to drain off the whey. The curds are now firm and look kind of like popcorn. Whey is actually a byproduct of cheese making. We siphon the whey out through a drain into a tank and feed it to our calves. They love the days that we make cheese.

NEXT TIME: Cheddar is a Verb

As far as I know, a cow must have a calf before they will produce milk, am I correct?

You are correct.

(I will leave your possibly offensive question in spoilers and answer it there)

Are your cows artificially inseminated, or do you have (a) bull(s)?

We have what is called a seasonal farm so all of our cows calve around the same time. We also have to breed them all the same time. We use AI for the first month of breeding season and then bring in one or two herd bulls for about two months after that.

What do you do with the calves once they're born?

We raise all of our calves on their mothers' milk for about two months and then they are weaned and put out in a training pasture where they eat grass. All of the heifers (girl calves) will be raised to become cows. Some of the bulls (male calves) are sold to other farmers who raise them for beef. We raise a few of our own for beef and for the next year's herd bulls.

[Humby]

Is this a family business you plan on doing for the rest of your life? What do you call the brand?

[Jesus' Princess]

That's really interesting Blessed Cheesemaker, I've never known exactly how cheese is made. Thanks for the great thread

[darcie]

How cool! I knew your family actually made cheese because of your name and profile info, but it's neat to see pictures. So does your family sell the cheese just locally or online? Can I grill you about the kind of cultures and rennet you use to see if I'd be allergic to it or not? Finding darcie-safe cheese is harder than it should be.

Thanks for the pictures! Especially the ones of the happy, grass-fed cows.

[Laura Ingalls]

I remember you saying you only make cheese on certain days of the week. What do you do with the rest of the milk - do y'all sell that as gallons of raw milk?

Never mind, I just checked your website and see that you do. By the way, I like the website redesign.

[bookworm]

Great thread BC I love cheese!

[BlessedCheesemaker]

Is this a family business you plan on doing for the rest of your life? What do you call the brand?

At this point, yes. We sell it under the name Clover Creek Cheese Cellar. *prepares to be creeped upon*

How cool! I knew your family actually made cheese because of your name and profile info, but it's neat to see pictures. So does your family sell the cheese just locally or online? Can I grill you about the kind of cultures and rennet you use to see if I'd be allergic to it or not? Finding darcie-safe cheese is harder than it should be.

We sell it locally and we can ship it via UPS. We also sell it through a few stores and restaurants and wholesalers. I think we do ship our cheese to Cream and the Crop Cheese out of San Francisco, which wholesales our cheese for us in California. I don't know if they sell to any stores near you. I can try to answer any questions you have regarding our rennet and cultures!

I remember you saying you only make cheese on certain days of the week. What do you do with the rest of the milk - do y'all sell that as gallons of raw milk?

Never mind, I just checked your website and see that you do. By the way, I like the website redesign.

Yes we sell raw milk and we also ship to Maryland and Virginia Milk Cooperative during the winter when our cows can't be out eating grass. Thanks, I had some free time over spring break and decided to finally get the website update done.

[~JCGJ~]

Is this a family business you plan on doing for the rest of your life? What do you call the brand?

At this point, yes. We sell it under the name Clover Creek Cheese Cellar. *prepares to be creeped upon*

How cool! I knew your family actually made cheese because of your name and profile info, but it's neat to see pictures. So does your family sell the cheese just locally or online? Can I grill you about the kind of cultures and rennet you use to see if I'd be allergic to it or not? Finding darcie-safe cheese is harder than it should be.

We sell it locally and we can ship it via UPS. We also sell it through a few stores and restaurants and wholesalers. I think we do ship our cheese to Cream and the Crop Cheese out of San Francisco, which wholesales our cheese for us in California. I don't know if they sell to any stores near you. I can try to answer any questions you have regarding our rennet and cultures!

I remember you saying you only make cheese on certain days of the week. What do you do with the rest of the milk - do y'all sell that as gallons of raw milk?

Never mind, I just checked your website and see that you do. By the way, I like the website redesign.

Yes we sell raw milk and we also ship to Maryland and Virginia Milk Cooperative during the winter when our cows can't be out eating grass. Thanks, I had some free time over spring break and decided to finally get the website update done.

What kind of prices do you have?

[darcie]

We sell it locally and we can ship it via UPS. We also sell it through a few stores and restaurants and wholesalers. I think we do ship our cheese to Cream and the Crop Cheese out of San Francisco, which wholesales our cheese for us in California. I don't know if they sell to any stores near you. I can try to answer any questions you have regarding our rennet and cultures!

I meant locally to you, but that's neat that you have some sent out here. Looks like the SF company distributes very locally to smaller shops. I'll bug you privately about the other stuff!

[BlessedCheesemaker]

Cheddar is a Verb
Once the whey has been drained, we pile all of the curds together in the center of the cheese vat. The pile is cut into long strips or slabs of cheese.

These slabs are then laid across the bottom of the cheese vat and turned every fifteen minutes for an hour and a half. This process is known among cheese makers as cheddaring. The verb refers to this process which allows the curds to lose more of their whey and allows cheddar cheese to last a long time.

Once the cheddaring is complete, the next step is to mill the curds. We cut the slabs into small slices and then run them through these french fry cutters so that we end up with many small strips.

We stir salt slowly into these curds, to continue to draw the whey out. This is the best time to taste the curds. They are nice and squeaky against our teeth!

Yes Humby this is me
NEXT TIME: Hoops & Followers or Swiss & Gouda
Question: would everyone like me to go back and describe how making Gouda and Swiss is different now, or finish the whole process and end with that? From this point on the processes is pretty similar again.

What kind of prices do you have?

We sell our cheese at farmer's markets for $12 dollars a pound, but most of the pieces end up being about $5. We also sell it to restaurants and stores at wholesale. If you come to our farm and buy it you also get a discount

[snubs]

This is a really cool thread, BC. I am very much enjoying it! It makes me want to come and help make cheese. =D

Well, if you are not done with the Cheddar making, I would like you to finish that process...and then move on to Gouda and Swiss. *nods*

[~JCGJ~]

This is a really cool thread, BC. I am very much enjoying it! It makes me want to come and help make cheese. =D

Well, if you are not done with the Cheddar making, I would like you to finish that process...and then move on the Gouda and Swiss. *nods*

I agree with snubs on this one.

Double post fixed: G4Y

[bookworm]

This is the best time to taste the curds. They are nice and squeaky against our teeth!

I don’t get to have cheese curds very often (not common in my area), so when I do they always make me laugh because they actually do squeak.

[BlessedCheesemaker]

Okay then, I shall continue through with Cheddar and them come back and explain what is different for making Gouda/Swiss. I also edited in another picture I found into my last post if anyone want to go see it.
Hoops and Followers
Just in case you haven't noticed already, cheese makers have a special vocabulary. Here are a few more words that I need to define: a hoop is what we use to mold the curds into a wheel of cheese. Ours are eight inches in diameter with small drain holes evenly spaced across the sides and bottom to let the whey drain out. These can come in many different sizes, some cheese makers use very large hoops to make enormous wheels of cheese. A follower is the lid that is placed on top of the curds and slides inside the hoops so that we can set the next hoop on top in the cheese press. First we place cheesecloth in each hoop and then pile the curds inside. The cheesecloth makes sure that none of the curds squeeze through the drain holes and gives the wheel a cool texture. The wheels are then weighed to ensure that each wheel will be close to the same weight when the pressing is complete.

Each hoop is them placed in our cheese press. We can fit 30 hoops in our cheese press, six columns of five hoops each. Depending on the yield and the type of cheese we may stack only four high so they don’t press as hard. We want to press cheddar wheels as hard as we can so we stack them five high.

As you can kind of see in the picture, our press works using metal pipes as levers with gallon water jugs on the end. The final number of jugs we use depends on the variety of cheese that we are making, but to start with we only put one jug. After the hoops have been pressing for a half hour, we take them back out and turn them over inside the hoops. This is called redressing and allows the wheels to press more evenly and let more of the whey out. We do this every hour for the first three hours and then for every two hours after than until bedtime. Cheddar is left in the press overnight, adding a new jug each time we redress until there are five jugs. After nearly 24 hours in the press, the cheddar wheels are taken out and put in the cooler to age.

NEXT TIME: What in the World is Affinage?