Getting Milky: A Crash Course in How Cheese is Made

Three large blocks of gouda cheese
Photo by Alexander Maasch on Unsplash

As much as we love cheese, we should be talking more about how it’s made. Most people know that it’s made with milk, but not many people know how exactly how the process works. So for the sake of the cheese, for the sake of fermentation, and for the sake of masterful food preparation, let’s dive into how cheese is made!

Curdling It

Most cheese that you see in the stores is made in professional factories. First, milk gets poured into massively large vats, where a starter culture of bacteria is then added. This will cause the lactose to transform into lactic acid, and not long after an enzyme called rennet will be added in order to curdle a protein in the milk called casein.

Next Steps

As the casein gets curdled, protein will start to appear in the form of liquid. Salt is then added, and the curds are then chopped up, which then releases a protein called whey. The more the curds are cut and heated, the more whey is released. Soon, you’ll have a handful of casein clumps, which are later pressed and left to dry (or age) for long periods of time. And there you have it. This is the basic gist of what goes down with cheese-making.