Cheese is produced almost all over the world, about 2000 varieties are known in total. There are also a great variety of cheese making technologies. What is this beloved product made of?
What products are needed to make cheese?
The most important component, without which it is impossible to make cheese, is milk. Milk can be used fresh, steamed, pasteurized.
Most people consume cheese from cow's milk, but there are many varieties of products from the milk of other animals in the world. Cheese made from milk of a camel, deer, buffalo, goat, sheep sounds rather unusual.
Mozzarella cheese is made from black buffalo milk, ilves cheese is made from reindeer milk.
The milk used determines the flavor characteristics of the cheese. Milk quality is influenced by many factors, so even representatives of the same variety will never be absolutely identical. Animals are kept in different conditions, with different times between milking and cheese making.
Chymosin, an enzyme of the mammalian gastric gland, is added to milk. For cheese making, this enzyme is mainly obtained from calves no more than 10 days old. In older animals, pepsin begins to be produced, which spoils the quality of the cheese.
Recently, plant-based enzymes have also begun to be used. For example, bacteria with an identical genetic code.
To make fermented milk cheese, you need to add sourdough. Yogurt, vinegar, citric acid, acid whey can act as a starter culture.
Salt is usually added to any cheese in an amount depending on the variety. For example, suluguni cheese is kept for some time in a saline solution during the manufacturing process. For homemade cheese, one tablespoon is enough.
Calcium chloride is often added to the cheese to help form a curd faster. In addition, calcium chloride improves the properties of the final product.
Stages of making cheese
In the first stage, the milk must be heated, this process is called pasteurization. Next, an enzyme or sourdough is added, as a result of which the future cheese acquires the consistency of a gel. The clotting result is processed to separate the serum.
When the curd has reached a sufficiently dense consistency, it can be cut. In fact, this is already the finished cheese. Spices, herbs, nuts are added to it.
Some types of cheese are not pressed, and some are laid out in the next stage in molds and sent under the press. The very last step is ripening the cheese. The product is taken to a special room where the necessary care is carried out during the ripening process.
To make the cheese ripen longer and not spoil, it is covered with wax.
The cheese is periodically peeled, even washed. Some varieties require alcohol treatment, smoking, and so on. The end result is highly dependent on the conditions maintained in the maturation room.
