Milkfat % & Cheese Results

[keepitlow]

Would skim milk or 1% yield about the same finished cheese product as whole milk?

[wharris]

I am not the authority here, but I will chime in;

I do not believe so.  My reason;  If the making of cheese is ultimately the act of concentrating the fats and proteins of milk into stable hunks of food, then having less raw material (skim milk) will yield less cheese.

Its tough to say though... I mean, since skim milk is typically used to make different cheeses than whole milk, its tough to directly compare.  I would think that if one was to make 2 batches of cheddar, the first using regular whole milk, and the second from from 1% milk, I would think that there would be differences.  I cannot understand how you will get similar yields.  You would definitely get something, (although I'm not sure what) but the two resulting cheese wheels won't weigh the same.

[Cheese Head]

keepitlow, good question, as Wayne says.

The only time I used 2% I definately got less yield than my normal whole milk and thus I would expect even less yield with skim milk.

Question is how much less? Looking at this table, whole cow's milk solids are ~12% with fat being 1/3 of it. So removing all-most the fat such as skimmed cow's milk would leave only 2/3 of whole milk's solids. This is assuming that milk manufacturers only remove the fat when processing whole cow's milk to skim, possibly a big assumption.

[Tea]

Hi Keepitlow and good question.  The removal of fat/cream from milk is called "standardisation" and is usually called for when making parm/romano style cheeses that are hard and need to age for long periods.  There are two ways that you can get the correct fat % and that is to either remove the fat from the milk, which requires the used of a special machine, or do a ratio of normal milk to skim milk.
Other cheeses like a Jack has extra cream added for that smoother creamier texture.
So my long way around answering your question is no, skim milk will not give you the same qualities in a cheese that required the normal amount of fat in the cheese.  It will be drier and crumblier.

[wharris]

"crumblier" - LOL

(that really a word?)

[Tea]

It is now 

[thebelgianpanda]

Hi guys, I'm new here and really excited to have found this forum.  I think it will help out with a lot of the questions I've been banging my head against

To the question of skim vs. 1% vs. whole, I've actually been running a ton of experiments, and yes there is a huge difference in yield, taste, and texture.  This first one was made with whole milk


This one was made with skim:


This one was made with 1%:


And here is a height comparison between the first six loaves I made while changing what kind of milk I used (skim, 1%, 2%, whole, 1%+skim, and whole+cream):



"So my long way around answering your question is no, skim milk will not give you the same qualities in a cheese that required the normal amount of fat in the cheese.  It will be drier and crumblier."

This is absolutely true.  In fact, even the difference in texture between skim and 1%, and 1% and 2% is so vast that it really surprised me.

[DeejayDebi]

It depends on the type of cheese you are making some are better with low fats and some are not. Off the top of my head I am drawing a blank (nothing unusual there) but I have some recipes that specifically call for low fat milks.

In general - lower fat yields less cheese.