Making

Cheese Making Homepage

Cheese Making Steps

Basic Principles
Milk:
◦ Types
◦ Processing
◦ Yield
◦ Products
Acidification
Starter Cultures:
◦ Function
◦ Manufacturers
◦ Manufactured Products
Lipases
Colourants:
◦ General
◦ Annatto
Acids
Coagulation
Calcium Chloride
Rennets:
◦ Animal
◦ Plant
◦ Microbial
◦ Fermentation
Milk Additives
Curd:
◦ When to Cut
◦ How to Cut
Salt:
◦ Function
◦ Types
◦ Salting Curds
◦ Salting Rinds
Pressing Curds
Brine:
◦ Making
◦ Using
◦ Maintaining
◦ For Preserving
Turning Cheeses
Ripening
Rinds:
◦ General
◦ Natural
◦ Ash

Defects

General:
◦ Coagulation
◦ Surface
◦ Body
◦ Aroma
◦ Flavour
Specific:
◦ Blue Mould
◦ White Mould

Equipment

Books
Cheese Caves
Cheesecloths
Hygrometers
Mats
Miscellaneous
pH Meters
Scales
Vats (Stockpots)
Thermometers

Best Practice: Turning Cheeses

• General
• Best Practices
• Tricks
• Traps

General

Cheese turning is the practice of flipping a cheese upside down and is normally done during the maturing/aging phase of cheese making. It is performed to:

1. Enable gravity to provide even moisture, fat, protein distribution throughout the cheese.
2. Enable gravity to provide an evenly barrel shaped cheese, if cheese is type that changes shape.
3. Allow all surfaces of the cheese in early aging days to dry evenly.

Conversely, if cheese turning is not performed during aging, it will become:

1. Internally lopsided resulting in improper development of the cheese.
2. Externally, visually lopsided resulting in poor aesthetics.
3. High risk of mold developing on the damp bottom side against the draining mat or board.

Turning is more frequent when a cheese is young and moister and thus when more susceptible to uneven settling.

Best Practices

1. Turning schedule as per recipe or experience.
2. Turn cheese frequently when young and less as cheese matures.
3. Time between turnings is longer for pressed hard cheeses like Gouda or Cheddar and shorter for soft non-pressed cheeses like Camembert.

Tricks

1. If recipe has no guidance on turning frequency, an example schedule for soft cheeses is ½ hour, 1 hour, 2 hours, 5 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, 3 days, etc between turnings and for hard cheeses is 2 hours, 5 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, 3 days, 1 week etc between turnings.
2. Keep records for next cheese making of same cheese type.

Traps

1. Do not "sweat" attaining the exact time to turn, high accuracy is not critical.