Natural cheese. Cheese product - what is it? What is the cheese product made from?

Master4ef

Macaroni and cheese, fried cheese, pizza, cheeseburgers… is there cheese everywhere? Yes exactly. Sometimes, however, some cheeses can be a bit smelly. Ever smelled the smell of gourmet cheese that made you turn up your nose?

How is cheese made?

All cheeses are made in basically the same way: the milk is curdled so that it separates into curds and whey. Cottage cheese, hard white lumps, and whey are thin, watery liquids. One of the most basic combinations of cottage cheese and whey is cottage cheese.

To make cheese, the milk is first heated to kill any harmful bacteria. After the milk has cooled, it is placed in large containers. Then cultures of special bacteria are added. These bacteria break down the sugar in milk (called lactose) into lactic acid.

After fermentation, rennet is added. Rennet contains an enzyme that produces protein (called casein) and promotes coagulation. This separates the milk into solids (curd) and liquid (whey).

Once a firm curd is formed, it is cut into smaller pieces to release more whey. The mixture is then heated in a syneresis process to produce even more whey.

The whey is then drained, leaving only the curd mass. The curd is now ready for the next operation, called cheddaring. Salt is often added at this point to improve flavor and remove extra moisture.

The salted curd mass is pressed into blocks over time and cooled until they form hard heads. The prepared pieces of cheese are then stored for weeks to months to allow them to mature and be ready to eat.

Different types of cheese are produced using different starters or special additives, slightly varying the stages of cheese production. For example, Mozzarella cheese is kneaded like dough to get the original elastic texture.

Which cheeses are smelly and why?

So why do some cheeses stink while others have almost no smell at all?

1. The secret lies in the starter used to make the cheese. The bacteria that make up the sourdough starter helps shape the cheese's taste, texture, and also smell.

For example, some bacteria give cheese a mushroom flavor and a particularly stinky smell. Examples include cheeses such as Brie and Camembert.

2. Other factors that can make cheeses especially smelly are time and moisture. Some cheeses are aged for many months. Additional artificial aging often enhances the flavor of the cheese.

The rinds (edges of blocks) of cheeses are sometimes specially moistened while they are ripening to maintain a certain level of moisture. Depending on which liquid is used - cognac, port, beer or salt water, the cheese can develop a certain taste and smell.

If you're wondering what stinky cheeses there are in the world, there are a few that are particularly famous for their spicy flavors:

• Vieux Boulogne known for its specific flavor because it is dipped in beer during the aging process.
• Other cheese - Epuas de Bourgogne- it stinks so much that it was forbidden to be transported in public transport in France, in the homeland of the delicacy!
• Perhaps the most famous stinky cheese, Limburger. Some believe that Limburger cheese smells like feet, and this statement makes sense. The bacteria used to create Limburg cheese, Brevibacterium, is also responsible for human body odor!

Is it possible to make cheese comparable to parmesan or mozzarella in Russia? Skeptics think not. It is impossible to make good cheese if the milk comes from cows that are fed silage. You can't make good cheese from reconstituted milk either. In addition, there are a lot of nuances in the production of elite cheese. For example, parmesan is cooked only from April 1 to November 11. And few people want to wait 36 ​​months until it matures. And real Italian mozzarella is made from black buffalo milk ...

The history of the appearance of cheese in Russia

In Russia, the word "cheese" for a long time meant "cottage cheese", and the taste of real rennet cheese was only known to us under Peter I. The beginning of domestic cheesemaking was laid by the brother of the artist Vasily Vereshchagin, Nikolai. In 1866, he founded the first cheese factory in the Tver region. Since then, the technology has hardly changed. Acid or rennet is added to milk, causing it to curdle. From the clot, using various technological methods and aging periods, cheeses that are completely different in taste are obtained.

What is cheap cheese made from?

The easiest way to reduce the cost of cheese is to replace part of the milk fat with vegetable fat. This technology was invented about 15 years ago. Thanks to it, the ripening period of cheese is almost halved, and the shelf life, on the contrary, is increased. True, such a product cannot be called “cheese”. According to the Technical Regulations "On the Safety of Milk and Dairy Products", it can only be referred to as a "cheese product". But on the label, in order not to scare off buyers, rarely anyone writes about vegetable fat.

How to calculate a fake?

This can only be done in a specialized laboratory. True, craftsmen claim that it is possible to reveal "vegetable" cheese if you leave it for a while on the kitchen table. The “correct” cheese will definitely dry out, and the “wrong” one will be covered with droplets of oil, it will “sweat”.

French paradox

The French, compared to the British, get sick less and live longer. This was usually explained as a love of red wine, but it's also about cheese!

✓ Germs vs germs

✓ More cheese - less sugar

Experts from Denmark and the UK, having studied the diet of 30,000 Europeans, came to the conclusion that eating cheese reduces the risk of type 2 by 12%. For a pronounced effect, it is enough to eat 55 g of this product per day.

✓ Uplifting

Cheese, like chocolate, improves mood because it contains the amino acid tryptophan, from which the joy hormone serotonin is formed.

The Dark Side of Cheese

Hard cheeses contain tyramine. In general, it is necessary, but in large quantities it can cause ....

Figures and facts

The fat content of hard cheeses is given in terms of dry matter. Since the cheese also contains water, its actual fat content is almost half the declared one. If on a piece of Russian it is written 45% , then in fact it contains about 25% fat.

With the help of a special device, British scientists determined the thickness of a slice of cheese for a sandwich, sufficient to fully experience the taste and smell of this exquisite product: 5 mm for cheshire cheese, 4.5 mm for cottage cheese and 2.8 mm for cheddar or other hard varieties.

Expert opinion

Tatyana ANOKHINA, head of the testing center HEAC "SOEKS" of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation.

“This cheese (Russian) is produced at low temperatures using acid-forming and aroma-forming streptococci as part of starter cultures, as well as lactic acid sticks such as L. casei, L. plantarum - this product owes its pleasant sourness and slit-like pattern.

Six samples of Russian cheese have been tested in our laboratory. No toxic elements, antibiotics, pesticides, radionuclides, GMOs of plant origin were found in them. Nevertheless, one of the contestants, namely the cheese of the Russian young trade mark (TM) Savushkin, turned out to be not cheese at all, but a cheese product - vegetable fats were found in it. Moreover, the manufacturer hid this fact! Cheese TM Schonfeld was recognized as the best in terms of organoleptic properties (appearance, taste, smell, consistency), silver was awarded to TM Prosto, and bronze went to TM Valio.

We can safely say that cheese is a universal product. It can be eaten separately, with bread, added to various dishes, soup is made from cheese and, of course, it is impossible to imagine pizza without it. In terms of its nutritional properties, cheese is practically not inferior to meat, which is why it is an integral part of a vegetarian diet. There are a huge number of different types of cheese, they all differ in fat content, composition and taste. It is the composition of the cheese that determines its type, variety and taste. Let's talk about what this popular product is made of. So, for starters, let's look at what cheese is generally made of.

What is cheese made from?

• Milk. Milk is the main and most important ingredient of any cheese. Indeed, even according to legend, cheese appeared when milk was forgotten in one of the caves, and when they arrived, they found the first analogue of cheese. Today, cheese is made from the milk of cows, goats, sheep, and sometimes from combinations of milk from different animals. Depending on the content of milk, cheese differs in its fat content.
• Leaven. The characteristics of this or that cheese differ in the use of one or another sourdough. It allows the cheese to ripen, giving a special taste to this product. To date, lactic acid bacteria, and sometimes propionic acid bacteria, are most commonly used.
• Rennet element. It is needed in order to turn milk into cheese. The best option is an enzyme derived from the stomachs of calves. But quite often it is replaced by various chemical analogues. In addition, calcium chloride, the common salt familiar to all of us, always complements the rennet element.

These are the main ingredients that make up the cheese, but most often you will not find a single mention of them on the label. On any of the purchased cheeses, you can read a fairly large list of ingredients. Let's dwell on them a bit:

General composition of cheese

Cheese making is a complex process. Therefore, you do not need to be scared when you meet words unfamiliar to you on the label. In general, in addition to pasteurized milk, cheese may contain: rennet powder, pepsin (food or beef) is an ingredient required to coagulate milk. As well as some enzyme preparations, here are the most common and permitted according to GOST:

• Salt. Mandatory non-iodized, not lower than the first grade;
• Annatto extract;
• B-carotene, soluble in water;
• Calcium chloride, necessarily dehydrated, not lower than the first grade;
• Potassium nitrate or sodium nitrate;
• Potassium saltpeter grades A, B, C, according to GOST.

It is worth saying that the composition of the cheese may contain various additives with the prefix E. Be sure to check their safety on the Internet, especially when it comes to processed types of cheese.

Chemical composition of cheese and nutritional value

If we talk about such a product as cheese, then we can not say about the various useful substances contained in its composition.

• The nutritional value. It is determined by the fat content in cheese, in other words, its fat content. Each type of cheese has its own fat content, the type of cheese and its taste depend on it. For example, Alpine cheese has a fat content of 25%, and brynza cheese has a fat content of only 14%. Remember that the fatter the cheese, the more high-calorie it is.
• Vitamins. Cheese is a product rich in vitamins. Most often, it contains vitamins of groups A, B and D, as well as patotheic acid.
• Squirrels. If we take into account that cheese is made from milk, then, as you understand, it is quite rich in proteins. So, different types of cheese have different amounts of proteins.
• Amino acids. Cheese, like no other product, is rich in various amino acids, such as valine, leucine, lysine and phenylalanine. All of them are very useful for the normal functioning of our body.

The composition of cheese also includes various useful substances, for example, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium. They are necessary for mental and physical stress. It is because of these elements that cheese is useful for the prevention of cancer, as well as tuberculosis. It should be noted that in this case we considered only the composition of hard cheeses. Processed cheese is somewhat different in composition from its hard counterpart, it is important to understand that not all processed cheese is equally healthy. Let's take a look at their composition.

Processed cheese: composition

In general, processed cheese is made on the basis of hard cheese, followed by the addition of milk powder, cream and butter. And for better thickening, various chemical melters are added. All processed cheeses can be divided into the following types:

• Chunky cheeses. It is made from hard cheeses with a fat content of 50-70%. They contain a minimum of chemical additives, and the taste of such cheese is rich, difficult to distinguish from a solid counterpart.
• Sausage cheeses. They are made from low-fat hard cheeses. Some chemical melters and thickeners can be found in the composition. Sometimes cumin is added.
• Pasty cheeses. These cheeses have a very strong characteristic taste and are made from medium-fat cheeses.
• Sweet cheeses. In their composition, you can find sugar or its substitutes, coffee or cocoa, honey, various syrups.

Modern manufacturers sometimes add various preservatives and colorants, as well as flavorings, to processed cheese to give the cheese a variety of flavors. Carefully read the composition of the cheese on the packaging, if you doubt it, then it is better to prefer hard cheeses. In addition to processed types, there are soft cream cheeses. The most famous soft cheese is Philadelphia.

Philadelphia cheese: composition

This type of cheese consists of skimmed milk and milk fat, a concentrate for turning milk into cheese, salt, and various stabilizers - guar gum or xanthan gum. In addition, vitamin A palmitate and sorbic acid are often used.

Now you know what cheese is made of. Remember that this product can bring both benefit and harm to your body. If you have a dairy intolerance, you should avoid eating cheese.

How does the morning of the majority of average citizens begin? With a huge cup of tea or a small portion of brewed coffee. Well, so that the stomach does not rebel much, and can survive until dinner, it is fed with a hearty and fragrant sandwich. And for several centuries now, the set of products for creating a morning sandwich has not changed: butter, sausage and cheese.

Only now their qualitative composition has become somewhat different, and now, in order to prepare not just a tasty, but also a healthy breakfast, it would be useful to ask how this or that cheese is made.

"Pigtail"

This kind of cheese can hardly be called a classic morning product. Most often, the “pigtail” is chosen as a snack for beer, which is explained by its salty taste and smokyness.

If we consider in more detail the process of how and from what the “pigtail” cheese is made, you can find out that all the same pasteurized milk is used for its manufacture, as for other types of industrial cheeses of mass consumption.

The milk base is coagulated with the help of a specific enzyme, which can be pepsin, after which it is heated again.

The resulting flakes begin to stick together, and the machines form them into strips, each 7 cm wide.

Then they are cut into thin fibers, braids are woven from them, and the almost finished product is sent for maturation in a vat of salt water. As soon as this production step is completed, the "pigtail" will go to the smoking chamber.

Sausage

Sausage type of cheese became popular in the Soviet Union when it became almost the only delicacy available to ordinary citizens. Its production technology is complex, and no one will like the answer to the question of what sausage cheese is actually made of.

This product is made from substandard and expired cheeses, old butter, cottage cheese and expired cream. This whole mixture is flavored with a huge amount of spices and seasonings, and it also contains melting salts. The latter do not allow components of different consistency to disintegrate, make the finished product keep its shape at any temperature.

In production it looks like this:

• All components are crushed and mixed according to the standard recipe, after which the mass is sent to the smelting vat;
• The hot cheese substance is distributed over the packaging, which resembles a loaf in its shape. It is made from ordinary cellophane, belkozin or cutizin;
• Prepared and filled buns are clipped, cut into pieces with the same weight, and sent to cool;
• The aroma of smoke is imparted by smoking. For this, it is customary to use oak or birch sawdust, although most unscrupulous manufacturers use liquid smoke.

Tofu

Tofu is a complete protein product that contains a lot of vegetable protein.

The answer to the question of what and how real tofu cheese is made from will be as follows: soy milk protein is taken, which is curdled by filtering or heating. For coagulation, citric acid, magnesium or calcium salts are used.

The resulting flakes are separated from the rest of the liquid, pressed and packed in vacuum containers with salted water. In terms of composition and biological value, tofu can be equated with meat, while its cost is an order of magnitude lower.

In such cheese there is no place for cholesterol, it contains a minimum amount of fats and carbohydrates.

Adyghe cheese

Original Adyghe cheese is a product made from whole milk of a sheep, goat or cow. The base is heated to 95 degrees, and fermented milk whey is poured into it for 15-20 minutes.

Under the influence of the latter, the milk curdles, and the clots remain in the warm liquid for another 5 minutes. Then the remaining mass is placed in specific willow baskets. It is they who leave a beautiful and corrugated print on the sides of the finished original product.

Depending on what and how the Adyghe cheese is made, the period of its suitability for consumption can vary from several days to a week. Due to the use of vacuum packaging, this period is extended to a month.

Processed cheese

All this is good, but then what is melted cheese made of, which is so tasty in the company of a grated boiled egg and garlic?

The production technology of this product is identical to that of sausage cheese, and the following ingredients may be present in the final product:

• fatty, rennet and low-fat cheese products expired, substandard, etc.;
• palm oils, cooking fats and margarine;
• protein-soy components;
• cornstarch and dried whey;
• melting salts, sugar, stabilizers, water;
• flour, edible additives, dyes, etc.

In fact, even the most expensive processed cheese is a long-term canned food, which is great for feeding residents of countries with a hot climate.

The briquette does not melt even at high air temperatures, but it can quickly deteriorate.

Cook at home

As you can see, how and from what industrial cheese is made does not cause appetite, but fear for one's health is very even. But all this is not at all a reason to refuse a hearty and tasty product, because it can be made from high-quality home-made ingredients, and using simple technology.

So, we make ordinary cheese at home:

• 5 liters of whole milk;
• 3 tbsp unsweetened yogurt;
• 0.5 g of rennet (sold in pharmacies);
• water and salt.

• Milk is mixed with yogurt, put on fire, and heated to 32 degrees;
• Add sourdough or rennet to warm liquid. It can be 1-1.5 tablets of renin, 20 ml of purified water and 0.25 g of cooking salt;
• All this is infused in a warm place for an hour. Then the mass should be folded onto gauze, let it drain well, mix, put under the load for 12 hours;
• For long-term storage, the homemade cheese product is sent to a refrigerator. Before that, it should be placed in a container with salted and warm water.

We make such an appetizer literally in a day, and its taste is much better than that of the store-bought version, not to mention the more “safe” and proven composition.

Now in shops and markets you can find and buy almost any product, even the most exotic, and it is not at all necessary to spend time preparing your favorite delicacies. This is the opinion of most people, and it can be understood: time is money, after work you just want to get the package out of the refrigerator and not think about where and how its contents came from. Attentive buyers, in addition to paying attention to prices, also read the composition and compliance with production standards (GOST, TU). And thoughtful and wise buyers learn more about what they eat, after which they seriously think about switching at least partially to their own cooking. Homemade cheese, in addition to having an interesting and fresh taste, guarantees that it was “produced” in accordance with all the rules and without unnecessary unnecessary components. The fact that your cheese will be very different from store-bought counterparts for the better is the main reason for trying it.

There is a little peculiarity in the preparation of cheeses. Good cheeses are made from large volumes of milk. By making a test sample of a liter volume, you can get a similar, but far from good quality homemade cheese.

Cheese is essentially milk concentrate. So, a pound of hard cheese contains as many useful substances as they are contained in 4.5 liters of milk. Having eaten a fragrant slice of bread with cheese in the morning, you can say that you drink a glass of milk with all its beneficial substances: riboflavin, calcium, vitamins. During the maturation of the cheese, the content of B vitamins increases, so that the cheese carries additional benefits.

Cheap cheese (up to 200 rubles/kg) is usually made from dry mixes. In stores, such cheese is usually already sliced, and information about the composition and production standards is not available to the buyer. When making homemade cheese, you can be calm about the quality, because you will buy milk for this yourself. The best option when you live outside the city and have the opportunity to buy fresh real milk or keep a cow yourself. If milk has to be bought, it is important to choose the right supplier. Milk should be clean, without foreign unpleasant odors, maximum fat content and, of course, fresh. Such milk can be bought in the markets, it is sometimes brought from the surrounding villages to the railway station areas, sold in places where electric trains stop. If you can’t find rustic, you can get by with the fattest store-bought milk (shelf life should be minimal) or use ready-made cottage cheese. The last option for the first time is even preferable, as it will save time, but it will give a general idea of ​​​​the process, and you can decide whether homemade cheese is needed on the farm or not for you.

Cheeses come in varying degrees of hardness (or softness). Homemade cheese is usually soft. It can reach a solid state after a long exposure. Hard cheese is prepared on the basis of cottage cheese separated from whey under pressure. The harder the pressure, the better the whey is squeezed out, and the harder the cheese becomes. Hard cheese can be stored a little longer than medium and soft cheeses. Aging hard cheeses greatly improves the taste. Soft cheese is not aged for a long time under pressure, therefore it has the structure of dense cottage cheese, is stored for a short time and has a delicate, mild taste. Soft cheese is no worse than hard cheese - it's just different. It all depends on your taste preferences and patience.

In the cheese business, it's rare to get it right the first time, so please be patient. If the preparation is serious enough, then perhaps delicious cheese will turn out the first time. For cooking, you will need an impressive list of tools. Some tools can be replaced with improvised means, and the main ones can be made independently.

You will need:

Choose the shape according to your needs. The optimal diameter is 20 cm - not too big, but not narrow. In the future, you can make cheese molds of different sizes. If you have not yet finally decided whether to make cheese or not, try making the simplest form from any large-diameter tin can with a volume of about a liter. Cut off the uneven edges at the top so that they do not interfere with the piston entering, and make holes in the bottom of the jar from the inside to drain the liquid. The torn edges of the holes should be on the outside so as not to damage the future cheese.

The piston is the part of the press that is equal to the diameter of the mold. The piston should freely enter the mold and not have large gaps at the edges. The purpose of the piston is to press and squeeze out excess moisture.

Press. This device can be made independently or bought. The simplest press, and at the same time a piston, can be considered two buckets, one of which is smaller. Small and will be a piston at the same time. In a larger bucket, make holes in the bottom for whey to flow out.

You will need pots to collect skimmed milk (liquid left over from milk). It is better to have several pots of different capacities ready.

A colander is required to separate the liquid part of curdled milk (skim milk). As a rule, gauze will work with a colander in pairs, retaining solid parts and letting liquid through.

The harder you want the cheese to be, the heavier the weight should be. It is optimal to have a main load weighing about 10 kg and several additional 5 kg each. It is convenient to use ordinary bricks as a load.

Paraffin or wax is required if you want to make hard cheese. Paraffin is used to preserve the resulting cheese. The easiest way is to melt a few household colorless candles.

The spoon should have a handle long enough to reach the bottom of the container in which you will stir the milk. It is better if it is wooden. Don't use aluminum.

The easiest way to make cheese from cottage cheese. Less time and effort will be spent, and an enzyme will not be needed to coagulate milk. Throw the cottage cheese into a colander lined with a cloth so that the whey is glassed, sprinkle with salt (1 tablespoon per kilogram of cottage cheese) and grind thoroughly so that the salt is evenly distributed and there are no lumps in the cottage cheese. Ideally, you should get a plastic curd mass. If the cottage cheese is dry or fat-free, you can add a little sour cream or cream. After that, transfer the curd mass into a mold, lay the bottom of it with gauze folded in several layers and put it under a press for 10-12 hours. Make sure the cheese doesn't get too dry. The resulting cheese is not stored for a long time, it should be eaten within a few days.

The second method is that the cottage cheese is ground with salt and left for 5 days in a dry place. Mix the dried and yellowed cottage cheese again, transfer to a greased pan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly until a liquid homogeneous mass without lumps is formed. Pour the prepared mass into containers and refrigerate. Ready cheese can be eaten in a few hours. Sometimes with this method, an equal amount of milk is added to the curd, heated and allowed to cool in the forms. Cheese obtained by these methods is also not stored for a long time.

Cottage cheese will not produce hard varieties that can be aged and stored for a long time. Real cheese can only be made with whole milk and a fermenting agent. The most widely available enzyme is pepsin. Since, due to the specifics of its preparation, pepsin is quite difficult to obtain in its pure form, the acidin-pepsin drug, which is freely sold in pharmacies, is suitable instead. Preparations containing pepsin should not be feared. Pepsin is just an enzyme produced in the stomach of animals, it folds protein well. In its pure form, pepsin is a medicine for certain types of gastritis and for poor digestion of food. In the case of cheese, pepsin acts as an enzyme that quickly turns milk into the necessary thick mass. By the way, you can use pepsin only once, later you can use sourdough. Another option is natural abomasum. This is the same gastric enzyme extracted from the stomachs of animals. This is why vegetarians don't eat rennet-based cheeses. Instead of rennet starter, you can use sour milk, live yogurt, or a couple of cups of homemade curdled milk, but in this case, the process will stretch somewhat over time.

Remember that from 4 liters of milk you will get about 0.5 liters of finished cheese. Cheese is best obtained from large volumes of milk (from 7 liters). Salt is an important ingredient in making cheese. Avoid overdoing. On average, from one teaspoon to one tablespoon of salt is spent for every liter of milk. The degree of salinity is selected individually.

Steps for making cheese.

1. Ripening.

Heat the milk to 32 degrees (use a thermometer) and add the starter. If it is sour milk, then it needs about 500 ml per 10 liters of fresh milk. Mix thoroughly and cover. Leave in a warm place overnight. The temperature of the container must not rise.

2. Adding abomasum.

Add to milk (at 25 degrees) ½ teaspoon of rennet or a solution of one tablet of "acedin-pepsin" per 100 ml of water. Stir the resulting mixture thoroughly and cover with a lid or cloth. Wait 30-40 minutes for the milk to curdle.

3. Cutting.

The curdled milk should thicken and the whey should separate. With a long knife, cut the mass into equal pieces with a 3 cm edge, cutting vertically, and then, tilting the container, cut horizontally. Stir the pieces with a large wooden spoon.

4. Heating.

Place the curd mixed mass in a smaller container, which you put in a large one. Pour water into a large one and heat in a water bath, slowly raising the temperature (by 2 degrees every 5 minutes). Bring the temperature to 38 degrees and keep at this level, stirring the curd mass for about 30-40 minutes. Stir gently to keep the cubes from sticking together and check periodically for tightness by gently squeezing and releasing quickly. The state is considered ready when the cubes break in the hand and do not stick together. This condition can occur 2-2.5 hours after the abomasum has entered the milk. This is an important point, you need to wait for the required density of the curd cubes, otherwise a bad aftertaste may appear.

5. Spin.

Filter the whey from the curd mass. To do this, you can use a colander lined with a cloth. After that, transfer the mass into a fairly flat container and turn it from side to side so that the remaining whey comes out completely. From time to time, loosen the mass with your hands or a fork so that a lump does not form. Control the temperature. At 32 degrees, the curd should be rubbery, creaking when chewed.

The amount of salt is chosen experimentally. For the first time, take a little less salt than seems sufficient. For the initially selected proportions, the guideline will be from 1 to 2 tablespoons. Spread the salt evenly and mix thoroughly. When the salt dissolves and the mass cools down to 30 degrees, it can be transferred to a mold for pressing.

Line the mold for pressing inside with a cloth and fill with cheese mass. Swaddle the mass on top with the free ends of the fabric and place under the press. To begin with, load the piston with a load of about 15 kg (3-4 bricks). Gradually add one brick at a time, bringing the total weight to 40 kg (8 bricks) and wait until the whey stops draining (about an hour).

8. Wrap.

Remove the oppression, remove the piston, remove the cheese, wash it, wipe it off so that the top layer of fat comes off, smooth out bumps and folds. Cut off a piece of fabric so that it overlaps a piece of cheese by 5 centimeters. Cheese should be tightly and securely “wrapped”. Put it back into the mold for the press (after washing and wiping it dry) and place it under pressure for a day (40-50 kg).

Take out the cheese, remove the cloth, wipe it with a dry clean cloth. Rinse with warm water, at the same time smooth out cracks and bumps (with your fingers or a table knife). Wipe the cheese with a clean cloth and place in a dark, cool place. The best storage place is a wooden cabinet. Rub and turn the cheese daily for 4-5 days until a crust forms on the surface.

10. Paraffin.

If the cheese turned out to be hard enough, then for the best result, you can cover its surface with paraffin. Heat 250 grams of paraffin in a water bath until liquid. The container should be larger in diameter than the head of cheese. Dip the cheese in paraffin for a few seconds and let it harden for 2-3 minutes. Make sure that the entire surface is covered with paraffin evenly.

11. Ripening.

Turn your cheese every day. Every week, wipe the closet, ventilate and dry it. After 6 weeks, the cheese will acquire a density, its taste will be soft and tender. The storage temperature should not exceed 15 degrees. If you want to wait for a sharp taste, then you should withstand the cheese for 3-5 months. At the same time, lower the storage temperature to 5-7 degrees. The lower the storage temperature, the longer the cheese can be aged, and the more elegant and sharper its taste will be. For the first cheese, it will be enough to withstand it for several weeks. You can divide the cheese into several parts before filling with paraffin and test one part for taste. But many believe that only a whole head is able to mature qualitatively.

These recommendations are intended to give a guideline in the manufacture of cheeses, to show the reality of their preparation at home. There are quite a few detailed recipes for making cheese, and all of them will differ to some extent from this. In the production of cheese, each of the described stages affects the taste, aroma and structure. By experimenting and trying, you can get your own "signature" variety and call it whatever you want.