What is cheddar?

[susanky]

I have been trying to understand the differences between Farmhouse cheddar and just plain 'ol cheddar.  One reference said that farmhouse cheddar is not aged but other discussions don't seem to support that.  The others, stirred curd cheddar obviously have to do with how it is made.  So what does 'cheddaring' do to the end result if you can skip it and still call it a cheddar.  One discussion here said the cheddaring process was just a tradition and doesn't affect the end result.  So what makes a cheddar?  And what makes it Farmhouse?  Am I missing the obvious?
Susan

[linuxboy]

Farmhouse cheddar: history of being made in small batches. Can be milled or stirred curd. This name is sort of pointless because there's nothing truly distinctive about it, it's a cheddar like other cheddars. It's like saying there's a huge difference between artisan and commercial cheddar in terms of their technologies (there isn't, artisan is about smaller batches).

Stirred curd cheddar: made to save the labor of milling curd. When done right, the results can be very good.

Milled curd cheddar: This is where you stack slabs, flip them, and let the acidity build up.

Cheddaring builds up acidity and also orients the direction of the strands of joined micelles in the cheese. Or to look at it another way, when the acid builds up, the micelles can slide over each other, and the stacking process stretches them out ever so slightly. There's been some research to suggest that the orientation is not crucial for flavor formation, but that the combination of fusing at lower pH and salting the individual curds is what gives the flavor.

[iratherfly]

My understanding is that Farmhouse cheddar has a much shorter/easier process where you just drain mill and finally press.  Classic cheddar requires you to do an interim press and/or stacking, then mill or break up the curd yet again (by now it has already partially knotted), then do the final press.

Classic cheddar takes longer to age and its texture is more complex because the re-breaking down and re-knotting the curd means that curd is now arranged tightly in all directions. Farmhouse cheddar is shorter to age, slightly more tangy and crumbly (crumbly because the curds were only knotted once so they are all arranged in the same direction).

As Linuxboy mentioned before, it comes from farmers who used their small quantity leftover milk to make a simpler cheddar at home to feed the family in the coming winter as opposed to giant heavy wheels that their farm would produce and age for a year or two to later sell in markets.  Farmhouse cheddar requires less skill, labor, upkeep and time to age.