The Basic Cheese Making Process

Making cheese is both a simple and a complex process, and is both an art and a science.
You start with high quality milk: either cow’s milk, sheep’s milk, goat’s milk, or a blend of milks.

First, the milk is warmed, and a bacterial culture called a starter is then added. The starter ferments the milk sugar and makes lactic acid. The acid is important because it helps the rennet coagulate the milk, and it helps keep the cheese from spoiling, and it helps with the flavor of the cheese! Important suff.

Rennet, an enzyme, is added to turn the milk into a big, Jello-like curd. This is called coagulation. Soft cheeses, such as cottage cheese, cream cheese, and most goat cheeses, are almost finished at this point. Soft cheeses are ready to eat in a short period of time, either hours or days. With a soft cheese, the milk either coagulates into curds by using just an acid starter, or also using rennet. Then the whey must be drained from the curds, and the cheese is ready to go.

When making a hard cheese, like Vermont’s famous cheddar, there are many steps to the process and depending on the type of cheddar - a lot of time. Once the milk glumps into curds, the curd is cut, stirred and heated. Heating and stirring helps remove the liquid whey. Whey is then drained off and the curds are salted and placed in molds. Molds are pressed to drain off even more whey. Time and pressure vary with the size and type of cheese. Then, depending on what kind of cheese is being made, it is either left to dry to form a rind, dipped in wax, or left to grow a molded surface. The cheese is then aged. Vermont cheese makers offer a delightful variety of cheeses.