If Cheese Is Melts Will Harden Again

Cheese

Background

Cheese is a fermented nutrient derived from the milk of various mammals. Since humans began to domesticate milk-producing animals effectually x,000 B.C. , they have known about the propensity of milk to separate into curds and whey. As milk sours, it breaks down into curds, lumps of phosphoprotein, and whey, a watery, grey fluid that contains lactose, minerals, vitamins, and traces of fat. It is the curds that are used to brand cheese, and practically every civilization on Globe has developed its ain methods, the just major exceptions existence Cathay and the ancient Americas.

The first cheeses were "fresh," that is, non fermented. They consisted solely of salted white curds drained of whey, similar to today'southward cottage cheese. The next step was to develop means of accelerating the natural separation process. This was achieved by calculation rennet to the milk. Rennet is an enzyme from the stomachs of young ruminants—a ruminant is an animal that chews its food very thoroughly and possesses a complex digestive organization with three or four stomach chambers; in the U.s., cows are the best known creatures of this kind. Rennet remains the near popular manner of "starting" cheese, though other starting agents such equally lactic acid and various establish extracts are besides used.

By A.D. 100 cheese makers in various countries knew how to press, ripen, and cure fresh cheeses, thereby creating a product that could exist stored for long periods. Each country or region developed unlike types of cheese that reflected local ingredients and conditions. The number of cheeses thus developed is staggering. France, famous for the quality and variety of its cheeses, is home to about 400 commercially bachelor cheeses.

The next significant step to impact the industry of cheese occurred in the 1860s, when Louis Pasteur introduced the process that bears his name. Pasteurization entails heating milk to partially sterilize information technology without altering its basic chemical construction. Considering the process destroys dangerous micro-organisms, pasteurized milk is considered more healthful, and nearly cheese is made from pasteurized milk today.

The first and simplest way of extending the length cheese would keep without spoiling was simply ageing information technology. Aged cheese was pop from the beginning because it kept well for domestic use. In the 1300s, the Dutch began to seal cheese intended for export in hard rinds to maintain its freshness, and, in the early 1800s, the Swiss became the first to process cheese. Frustrated by the speed with which their cheese went bad in the days before refrigeration, they developed a method of grinding old cheese, adding filler ingredients, and heating the mixture to produce a sterile, compatible, long-lasting product. Another advantage of processing cheese was that information technology permitted the makers to recycle edible, second-class cheeses in a palatable form.

Prior to the twentieth century, well-nigh people considered cheese a specialty food, produced in private households and eaten rarely. Still, with the advent of mass product, both the supply of and the need for cheese have increased. In 1955, thirteen percentage of milk was made into cheese. By 1984, this percentage had grown to 31 percent, and information technology continues to increase. Interestingly, though processed cheese is now widely available, it represents just i-third of the cheese being made today. Despite the fact that most cheeses are produced in large factories, a majority are nevertheless made using natural methods. In fact, small, "farmhouse" cheese making has made a comeback in contempo years. Many Americans at present own their own small cheese-making businesses, and their products have become quite popular, peculiarly amidst connoisseurs.

Raw Materials

Cheese is made from milk, and that milk comes from animals as diverse as cows, sheep, goats, horses, camels, h2o buffalo, and reindeer. Most cheese makers expedite the curdling process with rennet, lactic acid, or plant extracts, such every bit the vegetable rennet produced from wild artichokes, fig leaves, safflower, or melon.

In add-on to milk and curdling agents, cheeses may incorporate diverse ingredients added to enhance flavor and color. The swell cheeses of the world may acquire their flavor from the specific bacterial molds with which they have been inoculated, an example being the famous Penicillium roqueforti used to make France's Roquefort and England's Stilton. Cheeses may also be salted or dyed, usually with annatto, an orange coloring made from the pulp of a tropical tree, or carrot juice. They may be washed in brine or covered with ashes. Cheese makers who wish to avert rennet may encourage the bacterial growth necessary to curdling past a number of odd methods. Some cheeses possess this bacteria because they are fabricated from unpasteurized milk. Other cheeses, however, are reportedly made from milk in which dung or old leather have been dunked; still others acquire their bacteria from beingness cached in mud.

The unusual texture and flavor of candy cheese are obtained by combining several types of natural cheese and calculation table salt, milk-fat, cream, whey, h2o, vegetable oil, and other fillers. Processed cheese will besides have preservatives, emulsifiers, gums, gelatin, thickeners, and sweeteners as ingredients. Near processed cheese and some natural cheeses are flavored with such ingredients as paprika, pepper, chives, onions, cumin, motorcar-away seeds, jalapeño peppers, hazelnuts, raisins, mushrooms, sage, and salary. Cheese can too be smoked to preserve it and give it a distinctive flavour.

The Manufacturing
Process

Although cheese making is a linear procedure, information technology involves many factors. Numerous varieties of cheese exist because catastrophe the simple training procedure at different points can produce dissimilar cheeses, as can varying additives or procedures. Cheese making has long been considered a delicate process. Attempts to duplicate the success of an former cheese mill have been known to fail because atmospheric condition at a new factory do not favor the growth of the proper bacteria.

Preparing the milk

• i Small-scale cheese factories take either morning milk (which is richer), evening milk, or both. Because it is mostly purchased from small dairies which don't pasteurize, this milk contains the leaner necessary to produce lactic acid, i of the agents that triggers curdling. The cheese makers allow the milk sit until enough lactic acid has formed to begin producing the particular type of cheese they're making. Depending on the type of cheese existence produced, the cheese makers may and then heat the ripening milk. This process differs slightly at large cheese factories, which purchase pasteurized milk and must consequently add a culture of bacteria to produce lactic acrid.

Separating the curds from the whey

• 2 The adjacent step is to add creature or vegetable rennet to the milk, furthering its separation into curds and whey. Once formed, the curds are cut both vertically and horizontally with knives. In big factories, huge vats of curdled milk are cut vertically using sharp, multi-bladed, wire knives reminiscent of oven racks. The same machine then agitates the curds and slices them horizontally. If the cutting is done manually, the curds are cut both ways using a large, two-handled knife. Soft cheeses are cutting into large chunks, while hard cheeses are cut into tiny chunks. (For cheddar, for example, the space betwixt the knives is about i-twentieth of an inch [half a centimeter].) After cut, the curds may exist heated to hasten the separation

  

  In a typical cheese-making performance, the first step is preparing the milk. Although smaller factories purchase unpasteurized milk that already has the leaner present to produce lactic acrid (necessary for curdling), larger factories purchase pasteurized milk and must add bacteria civilisation to produce the lactic acrid.
  Side by side, the curds must exist separated from the whey. Animal or vegetable rennet is added, and then the curds are agitated and cut using large knives. Every bit the whey separates, information technology is tuckered. The curds are so pressed into molds, if necessary, to facilitate further moisture drainage, and anile for the proper amount of time. Some cheeses are aged for a month, others for several years.

  from the whey, merely they are more typically left alone. When separation is complete, the whey is drained.

Pressing the curds

• 3 Moisture must then be removed from the curds, although the amount removed depends on the type of cheese. For some types with high wet contents, the whey-draining process removes sufficient wet. Other types require the curds to be cut, heated, and/or filtered to get rid of excess moisture. To brand cheddar cheese, for case, cheese makers cheddar, or finely chop, the curd. To brand hard, dry cheeses such as parmesan, cheese makers get-go cheddar and then cook the curd. Regardless, if the curds are to exist anile, they are so put into molds. Hither, they are pressed to give the proper shape and size. Soft cheeses such every bit cottage cheese are not aged.

Ageing the cheese

• 4 At this stage the cheese may be inoculated with a flavoring mold, bathed in brine, or wrapped in fabric or hay earlier being deposited in a place of the proper temperature and humidity to age. Some cheeses are anile for a month, some for upwards to several years. Ageing sharpens the flavor of the cheese; for example, cheddar aged more than than two years is appropriately labeled actress abrupt.

Wrapping natural cheese

• 5 Some cheeses may develop a rind naturally, equally their surfaces dry out. Other rinds may course from the growth of bacteria that has been sprayed on the surface of the cheese. Even so other cheeses are washed, and this process encourages bacterial growth. In place of or in addition to rinds, cheeses can be sealed in textile or wax. For local eating, this may be all the packaging that is necessary. However, big quantities of cheese are packaged for sale in distant countries. Such cheeses may be heavily salted for export (such equally Roquefort) or sealed in impermeable plastic or foil.

Making and wrapping processed
cheese

• six Edible yet junior cheeses can exist saved and fabricated into candy cheese. Cheeses such as Emmental (commonly called Swiss), Gruyere (similar to Swiss), Colby, or cheddar are cutting up and very finely ground. After this powder has been mixed with water to form a paste, other ingredients such as salt, fillers, emulsifiers, preservatives, and flavorings are added. The mixture is then heated nether controlled conditions. While still warm and soft, the cheese paste is extruded into long ribbons that are sliced. The pocket-size sheets of cheese are then put onto a plastic or foil sheet and wrapped by a motorcar.

Quality Control

Cheese making has never been an easily regulated, scientific process. Quality cheese has always been the sign of an experienced, possibly fifty-fifty lucky cheese maker insistent upon producing flavorful cheese. Subscribing to analytical tests of cheese characteristics may yield a practiced cheese, but cheese making has traditionally been a hazardous effort. Developing a single set of standards for cheese is difficult considering each variety of cheese has its own range of characteristics. A cheese that strays from this range volition be bad-tasting and inferior. For example, good soft blue cheese will have high wet and a high pH; cheddar will have neither.

One controversy in the cheese field centers on whether it is necessary to pasteurize the milk that goes into cheese. Pasteurization was promoted because of the persistence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a pathogen or illness-causing leaner that occurs in milk products. The U.s.a. allows cheeses that volition exist anile for over lx days to exist made from unpasteurized milk; withal, information technology requires that many cheeses exist made from pasteurized milk. Despite these regulations, it is possible to swallow cheeses made from unpasteurized milk to no ill effect. In fact, cheese connoisseurs insist that pasteurizing destroys the natural bacteria necessary for quality cheese manufacture. They claim that modernistic cheese factories are so make clean and sanitary that pasteurization is unnecessary. So far, the result of this controversy has but been that connoisseurs avoid pasteurized milk cheeses.

Regulations exist so that the consumer can purchase authentic cheeses with ease. France, the preeminent maker of a variety of natural cheeses, began granting certain regions monopolies on the manufacture of sure cheeses. For example, a cheese labeled "Roquefort" is guaranteed to accept been ripened in the Combalou caves, and such a guarantee has existed since 1411. Because cheese is made for human being consumption, great care is taken to insure that the raw materials are of the highest quality, and cheese intended for export must run across particularly stringent quality command standards.

Because they possess such disparate characteristics, different types of cheese are required to see different compositional standards. Based on its wet and fat content, a cheese is labeled soft, semi-soft, hard, or very hard. Having been assigned a category, it must then fall inside the range of characteristics considered acceptable for cheeses in that category. For example, cheddar, a hard cheese, can contain no more than 39 per centum water and no less than l percent fat. In addition to meeting compositional standards, cheese must likewise meet standards for flavor, aroma, trunk, texture, color, advent, and end. To test a batch of cheese, inspectors core a representative bicycle vertically in several places, catching the center, the sides, and in between. The inspector then examines the cheese to detect any inconsistencies in texture, rubs it to determine trunk (or consistency), smells it, and tastes it. Cheese is commonly assigned points for each of these characteristics, with flavor and texture weighing more than colour and advent.

Processed cheese is also subject to legal restrictions and standards. Processed American cheese must incorporate at to the lowest degree 90 percent real cheese. Products labeled "cheese food" must be 51 percent cheese, and almost are 65 percent. Products labeled "cheese spread" must too be 51 percent cheese, the difference being that such foods have more h2o and gums to make them spreadable. "Cheese product" usually refers to a nutrition cheese that has more water and less cheese than American cheese, cheese food, or cheese spread, but the specific corporeality of cheese is not regulated. Similarly, "imitation cheese" is not required to contain a minimum corporeality of cheese, and cheese is usually not its chief ingredient. In full general, quality candy cheese should resemble cheese and possess some cheesy flavour, preferably with a "bite" such as abrupt cheddar cheese has. The cheese should be smooth and evenly colored; it should also avoid rubberiness and melt in the mouth.

Where To Learn More

Books

Brown, Bob. The Consummate Book of Cheese. Gramercy Publishing, 1955.

Carr, Sandy. The Simon and Schuster Pocket Guide to Cheese. Simon and Schuster, 1981.

Kosikowski, Frank. Cheese and Fermented Milk Foods. Cornell University, 1966.

Mills, Sonya. The Globe Guide to Cheese. Gallery Books, 1988.

Timperley, Carol and Cecilia Norman. A Gourmet's Guide to Cheese. HP Books, 1989.

Periodicals

"American Cheese and 'Cheeses'," Consumer Reports. Nov, 1990, pp. 728-732.

Birmingham, David. "Gruyere's Cheese-makers," History Today. February, 1991, pp. 21-26.

Raichlen, Steven. "Farmhouse Cheeses," Yankee. February, 1991, pp. 84-92.

— Rose Secrest

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