This is the most complex technical blog article I have written. It is an important area of cheese making so I thought something should be written on this subject. However, when I started writing, the explanations I tried to provide became messy and confusing to me as the writer and the message I wanted to provide to you as the cheesemaker. However, I persisted. It is a complex subject to write on because it is stretching the level of my technical understanding of cheesemaking; we cannot see demineralisation happening when we make our cheese, so we assume it will just…

The volume of cultures that you add to your cheesemaking milk varies with different cheeses. See the three specifications from the technical data sheet for three products: M244, Flora Danica and Probat 222. These cultures are very popular but are manufactured by three different companies. Each contains four microbes (LL + LC + LD + LM). These three products can be used interchangeably to make the same cheese. But nowhere does it say on the specification to add ‘X’ amount of culture to ‘X’ volume of milk for a certain cheese. It is very confusing information for the cheesemaker to…

Acidity in cheese provides a pleasant flavour, but the cheesemaker should control acid development during the cheesemaking process. Different cheeses require different acid levels, e.g. some require quite a lot of acid, such as cream cheese, quark, strong crumbly Feta, sharp and bity Cheddar and even yoghurt and sour cream. Some cheeses only require a lower level of acidity including Gruyere, Comte, Parmesan and most wash rinds, then cheeses that require a mid-range of acidity include Camembert and Brie, Cheddar, Edam, Mozzarella etc Starter cultures (starter/s) are added to the milk at the beginning of the cheesemaking process. It may…

I want to say yes because you do not want to throw them out and spend more money buying a new set when you have not used all of the current set of ingredients. The safe answer is that you should not use ingredients when they are past their Best Before date. However, you are probably looking for a small piece of content in this article that you can justify using those ingredients! But a yes or no answer does not fit every situation, so you need to consider your ingredients on a case-by-case basis. Firstly, the ingredients are usually…

Whey should be greenish, yellow and translucent. When your whey is whitish, cloudy or milky it is a sign that something is not quite right in the cheesemaking process. The white is solids that have left the curd and are now in the whey. So your yield will be less than what it could have been. Whey contains about 93% water (milk is about 87% water anyway), less than 1% protein (mostly whey proteins), 1 to 2% fat and about 4% to 5% lactose (carbohydrates). There are also very minute amounts of starter culture, rennet and enzymes in the whey.…

Just prior to hooping curds, the curds are in the ‘curds and whey’. There are two distinct situations in the cheese vat: whey semi‑solid curd particles The degree of whey drainage from the curd prior to hooping will affect the flavour and texture of the finished cheese. After cutting the curds, syneresis or drainage of whey from the curd causes the curd particles to progressively become smaller with the expulsion of whey from the curd. The starter cultures are trapped in the casein gel and begin to ferment the lactose to lactic acid and, therefore, lower the pH of the…

Waxing cheese is one of several ways to preserve your cheese while it matures. Other prominent ways of preserving and storing cheese are cheese wraps, vacuum sealing, natural rind, plant leaves, straw, ash and using coatings such as lard, butter, olive oil and PVA (polyvinyl acetate). Waxing is a simple process and provides your cheese with a solid coating that gives your cheese an attractive look, to both the cheesemaker and the consumer. The wax barrier will protect the cheese physically against minor bumps, stop microbes from growing on the cheese surface, especially yeasts and mould and stop the cheese…

Background Homogenisation of milk has been around since its invention by Auguste Gaulin in the very early 1900s We all know that if you leave non-homogenised milk to stand still, the cream will rise to the surface. The milk and the cream separate. It does this because the cream is lighter than the milk. Many milk types are available from shops and supermarkets, but many are not ideal for making cheese. To make cheese, you require pasteurised, not homogenised, milk (milk where the cream floats to the top of the bottle). The label will usually mention that the milk is…

To understand how to make cheese, it may be a good idea to see how cheese was first made. The first cheese was probably not designed but happened by accident. Cheese may have originated from a bowl of raw milk left on a table for a few days, and as it curdled, the flavour and texture of the milk would have changed. The curds may have been drained in cloth, the remaining curds then salted and then eaten fresh. A more scientific view looks at the first cheeses based on the history of making cheese was discovered by the Neolithic…

Making pressed cheese on a cold or cool day requires some general awareness of the temperature of the cheesemaking room so that you can, if necessary, modify some parts of your cheesemaking process when it comes time to hoop or press your cheese. Cheese curd that is hooped cold or is left in the press at a cold temperature overnight, may: not reach the desired acidity level have a higher moisture level not look even and smooth on the surface have excessive openings within the core of the cheese When cheese is pressed, the aim is for the curd particles…

How does a white mould cheese mature? The cheeses that have a white mould covering mould on the outside are classed as bloomy rind cheeses. The white mould that grows on the outside of the cheese is known as Penicillium Candidum or white mould spores or PC or PCA. Camembert and Brie are the two most well known white mould kinds of cheese, but there are also several others such as Chaource, Neufchatel, Coulommiers, Brillat Savarin, Cremeux d’Argental  and Mont dÒr.  Bloomy rind cheeses are ripened from the outside in, courtesy of these yeasts and moulds on the surface of the…

There are thousands of varieties of cheese made each day across the world. A cheesemaker will start with a vat of milk and by the end of the cheesemaking process, cheese has been made. Also, if you make several different cheeses on the same day and use the same milk for each cheese, each cheese will turn out differently. These cheeses are all different but they are all coming from the one ingredient; milk? The cheesemaker has many variables under their control, each of which will slightly or significantly influence the type of cheese being produced. When these variables are…

Why is it important to cut the curd at a certain size, and why is moisture content just as important?   The size in which you cut the curd will affect several different characteristics of your cheese. Get it wrong and the cheese may not turn out as you had planned. The cutting of the curd that has been formed after the addition of the rennet is one of the most critical aspects of cheesemaking. Cutting is the start of removing moisture process and will affect the final moisture of the cheese, as well as acidity, maturation rate, rinds, the…

A key part of making cheese is forming milk into curd. Achieving a good set of your milk is one of the most important steps in making cheese. But it can also be one of the most inconsistent tasks of making cheese. There are several practical considerations that the cheesemaker needs to be aware of that can affect how well a set can occur in making cheese. Background to Forming a Cheese Curd The original rennet was an extract of the ruminant. Ruminants are hoofed herbivorous grazing or browsing mammals. The abomasum is the fourth and final stomach compartment in…

This list changes and it is constantly being updated. If I have left any manufacturers off this list, can you please email the details to me at info@cheesemaking.com.au? Also, if one of the listed manufacturers is no longer providing milk can you please notify me? Because it is not legal to sell raw milk in Australia, I have excluded raw milk suppliers. Most retail outlets and shops where pasteurised non-homogenised milk is available are not included on this list, as there are too many. However, if there are outlets that provide several varieties of pasteurised non-homogenised milk and cream, I…

In Australia, as does the rest of the world, we have a significant fluctuation in temperatures between summer and winter. Depending on where you live, one region in Australia can have a much colder overnight temperature than another region. In some Southern Australian locations, the overnight temperatures can get to below 0°C, whereas in more northern regions of Australia temperatures may only get to a low of 15°C overnight. That is a big variation in temperatures. As we approach the colder months of the year, and it’s not winter yet, it is worth noting the temperature of your kitchen (or…