Wiki: Milk Yield

This Wiki Article provides guidelines of cheese weight yields from different volumes of milk. It is divided into the following sections:

General

Camembert, Unaged - CheeseForum.org
Camembert, Unaged - CheeseForum.org

In cheese making, yield is a term for the amount of cheese resulting from a certain volume of milk, it varies by type of milk, amount of fat in milk, and moisture-water content of the cheese.

Yield in cheese making is normally given in weight of final cheese after salting and aging, per weight of milk used (thus ignoring non-cheese additives such as peppers & nuts and coatings if used such as wax or lard bandaging). Weight is used rather than volume as weight of final cheese is an easier measure than volume.

While commercial cheesemakers use weight of milk in their cheese making batches, for small home or artisan sized cheese making batches, most people use volume of milk.

Thus for people new to cheese making, the following tables convert i) volume of milk to weight of milk (assuming specific gravity of 1.033, the average S.G. for raw-whole cow’s milk, the most common milk used in cheese making) and ii) using the % Yield to calculate the resulting weight of the cheese, after salting and aging. Note, these final weight of cheese tables are a guide only, for example higher fat milks will have a lower S.G., and milk at warm temperatures will also have a lower S.G., thus it is good practice to weight your final cheese to determine your yield for future reference and to determine if it is the approximate right moisture content.

Yield Table – Metric

Type Yield  Weight For 3 Liters Milk
(kg)
 Weight For 5 Liters Milk
(kg)
 Weight For 10 Liters Milk
(kg)
 Weight For 20 Liters Milk
(kg)
Cream Cheese 20% 0.62 1.03 2.07 4.13
Feta 13% 0.40 0.67 1.34 2.69
Camembert 12-14% 0.37-0.43 0.62-0.72 1.24-1.45 2.48-2.89
Gouda & Cheddar 10% 0.31 0.52 1.03 2.07
Parmesan & Romano 7-8% 0.22-0.25 0.36-0.41 0.72-0.83 1.45-1.65

Yield Table – USA

Type Yield  Weight For 1 Gallon Milk
(pound)
 Weight For 2 Gallon Milk
(pound)
 Weight For 4 Gallon Milk
(pound)
 Weight For 6 Gallon Milk
(pound)
Cream Cheese 20% 1.7 3.3 6.6 9.9
Feta 13% 1.1 2.2 4.3 6.5
Camembert 12-14% 1.0-1.2 2.0-2.3 4.0-4.6 6.0-6.9
Gouda & Cheddar 10% 0.8 1.7 3.3 5.0
Parmesan & Romano 7-8% 0.6-0.7 1.2-1.3 2.3-2.6 3.5-4.0