Cheese is made by acidifying milk, adding rennet so it sets into curd, cutting and cooking the curd, draining the whey, salting, pressing and, for hard types, aging; a wheel of hard cheese can then keep 1-3 years without refrigeration. How much whey you drain and how hot you cook the curd decide whether the result is a fresh cheese eaten within days or a hard cheese that stores for years.
Part of Dairy Production at Scale
Cheese making is the controlled separation of milk into solid curd and liquid whey, followed by salting and aging that turn the curd into a long-keeping food.
Cheese Preserves Milk By Throwing Away Most Of Its Water
Milk is mostly water. Curd concentrates the protein and fat in a fraction of the volume and the whey carries off most of the water and sugar. The less water left and the more salt and acid in the curd, the longer the cheese keeps. That single relationship explains why a fresh cheese lasts a week and a hard cheese lasts years.
The Seven Steps
The parent article lists the steps that every cheese shares:
- Acidify the milk with a starter culture or direct acid
- Add rennet so the milk forms curd
- Cut and cook the curd, which decides moisture and texture
- Drain the whey
- Salt the curd
- Press into a form (for hard cheeses)
- Age (for aged varieties)
Fresh cheeses use only a few of these. Hard cheese uses all of them.
Where To Go From Here
| You want | Read |
|---|---|
| Cheese eaten the same day or within a week | Fresh cheeses (no aging required) |
| Cheese that keeps for months or years | Semi-hard and hard cheeses |
| The enzyme that makes the milk set | Rennet sourcing and preparation |
| Starter culture and how acidity is controlled | Cultures and acidification |
| A place to age the cheese | Cheese Cave Construction |
The household-scale versions are in Cheese Basics and Simple Cheese Making.
What You Need
- Milk, pasteurized unless the herd is verified healthy (see Pasteurization Methods)
- A pot or vat with a water jacket for controlled heating
- A long knife for cutting curd, cheesecloth and molds
- Salt, a thermometer, a press and a cool place to age
Common Mistakes
- Starting with aged cheese. Fresh acid cheese teaches handling curd in an afternoon; aged cheese takes weeks to show you its mistakes.
- Overheating the milk before rennet. Milk heated hard denatures and will not set.
- Treating the whey as waste. See Whey utilization (pigs, gardens).
Safety
Raw-milk cheese carries the raw-milk hazard
Cheese made from unpasteurized milk can carry the tuberculosis, brucellosis and listeria the milk carried, and fresh or soft cheeses, which are not aged, do not lose any of it. If you cannot verify every animal, pasteurize the milk before you make cheese; the combinations are in Pasteurization Methods.
What’s Next
- Learn next: Fresh cheeses (no aging required) — the first cheese to make
- Combine with: Cheese Cave Construction — the place the aged cheese goes