How Is Cheese Made?

Americans eat a lot of cheese — an average of 42 pounds per person annually, as of 2022. Cheese is so popular today because of its variety, flavor and versatility. You can use it to make dishes like mac and cheese, shred it on top of pasta or potatoes, add a slice to your favorite sandwich or enjoy it as a snack or appetizer. However, even the biggest cheese lovers may still not know about the cheesemaking process.

This comprehensive article will demystify the magic of cheese making by explaining how cheese is made in today’s agricultural practices. You’ll also learn what cheese is and the various ingredients in cheese making. The next time you put together a spread of your favorite cheeses, you may feel more appreciative of the labor and care that went into creating them.

Shop Our Cheeses

What Is Cheese Made Of?

Cheese is made slightly differently worldwide and even across the U.S. However, most cheese contains the same base ingredients — milk, cultures, coagulants and salt. Other ingredients add flavor, such as spices, herbs and even wine. The source and combination of ingredients are what makes cheeses different. The aging process is also important — even cheeses with identical ingredients will differ based on different aging processes.

Let’s go over the four primary ingredients found in most cheeses:

1. Milk

Each type of cheese has distinct flavors and textures, but they all start with the same star ingredient — milk. However, even the type of milk can differ from cheese to cheese. A few examples of milk used to make cheese include:

• Cow’s milk: Cheese is usually made with cow’s milk because it’s widely available and offers optimal amounts of fat and protein. Swiss, cheddar, Gouda and other cheeses are made using cow’s milk.
• Sheep’s milk: We don’t usually drink sheep’s milk since it’s so high in lactose, but it makes a fantastic base for cheese. Roquefort, feta, petit basque and manchego are all made using sheep’s milk.
• Goat’s milk: Goat’s milk lends a distinctive tangy flavor to cheeses like Le Chevrot and French Bucheron. Goat milk cheese is also known as chevre.
• Buffalo milk: While not a common cheese ingredient, buffalo milk has made a name for itself in the cheesemaking world as the traditional choice for mozzarella. However, most mass-produced mozzarella is made with cow’s milk.

Even more obscure types of milk can be used to make regional specialty cheeses. For example, camel’s milk is the basis for caravane cheese, first produced in Mauritania. Other cheeses can be made from horse or even yak’s milk.

2. Cultures

Some cheeses need an addition of bacteria to start the transformation from milk to cheese, so cheesemakers add starter cultures to the milk. A starter culture contains living bacteria that eat the lactose sugar in milk, turning it into lactic acid. As more lactic acid develops, the cheese’s acidity levels rise. This acidity is what helps with curdling, preservation and flavor development.

Cheesemakers can choose from multiple types of starter cultures depending on the kind of cheese they want to make. The two most common types are mesophiles and thermophiles. Mesophilic cultures are best for most cheeses as they thrive at lower to moderate temperatures. A thermophilic culture is more suitable for longer-aged, hard cheeses that need warmer temperatures during ripening and cooking.

3. Coagulants

Milk doesn’t turn into delicious cheese on its own. Another important ingredient in cheese is a coagulant, which helps the milk turn into curds. The coagulant may be a type of acid or, more commonly, rennet. Rennet is an enzyme complex that is genetically engineered through microbial bioprocessing.

Traditional rennet cheeses are made with rennin — the enzyme rennet is meant to replicate. Rennin, also known as chymosin, is an enzyme that is naturally produced in the stomachs of calves and other mammals to help them digest milk.

4. Salt

Finally, cheesemakers add salt to most cheeses to enhance their flavor and regulate moisture content, which affects their texture. Additionally, salt controls bacteria growth and helps preserve the cheese. The type of salt used matters — cheesemakers typically use non-iodized salt or cheese salt to make their cheese. The lack of iodine is important, as iodine can affect the cheese’s flavor and texture.

Turning Milk Into Cheese

Historians aren’t sure where cheese comes from or who invented it, but they do know how it’s made. Cheese making is a natural process that requires some help from artisans known as fromagers or cheesemakers. Another term you may hear is a cheesemonger, but this technically refers to someone who sells cheese.

Today, most cheese is made in cheese factories, and the cheesemaking process differs depending on the type of cheese. However, all cheesemaking follows the same general process, especially in the beginning stages. Here’s a quick overview of the process:

1. Preparing the milk: Cheesemakers start by processing the milk to prepare it to turn into cheese.
2. Acidifying the milk: They add cultures so that the milk ferments and becomes more acidic.
3. Curdling the milk: The maker adds a coagulant to cause a reaction that curdles the milk, creating curds.
4. Cutting the curd: The cheesemaker slices the curd with knives to separate the curds and whey.
5. Processing the curd: They stir, cook and wash the curd to acidify and dry it.
6. Draining the whey: Next, they drain the whey, leaving only a mat of cheese curd.
7. Cheddaring the cheese: The cheesemaker cuts the curd mat into sections and repeatedly flips the pieces before milling.
8. Salting the cheese: Some cheesemakers salt their cheese, while others brine it in a salt solution.
9. Shaping the cheese: They may shape the cheese, often using molds to assist.
10. Aging the cheese: Cheesemakers then age the cheese for days or years.

The Cheesemaking Process

Let’s take a closer look at the process that turns milk into delicious cheese:

Step 1: Preparing the Milk

Since milk is the star of the show, you need your milk to be just right to make good cheese. “Just right” will differ from cheese to cheese, so many cheesemakers start by processing their milk to standardize it. Standardizing the milk may involve manipulating the protein-to-fat ratio.

Milk preparation also often involves pasteurization or mild heat treatment. Heating the milk kills organisms that could cause the cheese to spoil and can also prime the milk for the starter cultures to grow more effectively. After heat treating or pasteurizing the milk, the cheesemaker cools it to a specific temperature to prepare it for the starter cultures. If a cheese calls for raw milk, the cheesemaker will heat it to the right temperature for the chosen culture.

Step 2: Acidifying the Milk

The next step in cheesemaking is adding starter cultures to acidify and ripen the milk. If you’ve ever tasted sour milk, then you know milk will acidify on its own if left for long enough. However, any number of bacteria can grow in sour milk. Instead of letting milk sour on its own, modern cheesemakers typically standardize this step using cultures.

The cheesemaker warms the milk to a specific temperature to allow bacteria to grow and adds the starter culture. Then, they leave the milk for a while to ripen. During this ripening process, the milk’s pH level drops, and the flavor begins to develop. Raising the milk’s acidity also helps kick-start the curdling process and prevents the growth of bad bacteria.

For some soft cheeses, cheesemakers add food acids — like citric acid or lemon juice — to acidify the milk instead of starter cultures.

Step 3: Curdling the Milk

The milk is still liquid at this stage, so cheesemakers start manipulating the texture by curdling it. The process of curdling the milk can also happen naturally. In fact, some nursing animals — such as calves, piglets or lambs — produce the rennin enzyme in their stomachs to help them digest their mother’s milk.

Today, cheesemakers control curdling using rennet, the lab-created equivalent of rennin. Rennet causes a reaction with proteins in milk to turn it into coagulated lumps, known as curds. As the solid curd forms, a liquid by-product called whey remains. Interestingly, lactic cheeses use little to no rennet and instead rely on the bacteria to curdle it over time.

Step 4: Cutting the Curd

Cheesemakers leave the curds and whey mixture to separate and ferment. At this point, the curd should form a large coagulated mass in the cheesemaking vat. Then, cheesemakers use long curd knives that can reach the bottom of the vat to cut through the curds. Cutting the curd helps it release the whey.

Cheesemakers usually make crisscrossing cuts vertically, horizontally and diagonally to break up the curd. The size of the curds after cutting can influence the cheese’s moisture level. Larger chunks of curd make moister cheese, while smaller pieces of curd lead to drier cheese.

Step 5: Processing the Curd

After cutting the curd, the cheesemaker will continue to process it. This might involve cooking, stirring or both. The heat and stirring motion develop the acid and separate the curds and whey further. The more they cook the curds, the drier the cheese will be.

Cheesemakers may also process the curd during this stage through washing. Washing the curd means replacing some of the whey with water, which affects the cheese’s flavor and texture. Washed curd cheeses tend to be more elastic and have a nice, mild flavor. Some examples of washed curd cheeses are Gouda, havarti and Swedish fontina.

Step 6: Draining the Whey

Once the curds and whey are sufficiently separated, the cheesemaker drains the whey, leaving only the solid chunks of curd. These chunks could be big or small, depending on how finely the cheesemaker cut the curd. There are different means of draining whey. In some cases, cheesemakers allow it to drain off naturally. However, they may use a mold or press for harder cheeses that require a lower moisture content. Putting pressure on the curd forces more whey out.

Step 7: Cheddaring the Cheese

With the whey drained, the curd should form a large slab. For some cheeses, another step remains to remove even more moisture from the curd. This step is known as cheddaring. After cutting the curd mat into sections, the cheesemaker will stack the individual slabs of curd. Stacking the slabs puts pressure on them, forcing out more moisture.

The cheesemaker repeats the process, cutting up the slabs of curd again and restacking them. The longer this process goes on, the more whey is removed from the curd, resulting in a denser, more crumbly finished cheese texture. Fermentation also continues during the cheddaring process. When it’s ready, the cheesemaker cuts the slabs into smaller pieces.

Step 8: Salting the Cheese

The curd is now beginning to look more like cheese in its final form. At this point, cheesemakers salt the cheese to add flavor and extend its shelf life. They might mix salt into the curd pieces or submerge them in a salty solution called brine. An example of a cheese that gets soaked in brine is mozzarella. Cheesemakers can also add salt further in the process by dry rubbing it on the outside of formed cheeses to develop the rind.

Cheesemakers sometimes add extra flavor from spices and herbs, like horseradish, garlic, paprika, habanero, cloves, dill, basil, chives or rosemary. The options for flavoring cheeses are endless. However, the focus is usually on developing the cheese’s natural flavors.

Step 9: Shaping the Cheese

With all the ingredients added, cheesemakers can now shape the cheese. This stage is where the final product begins to reveal itself. Even with so much moisture removed from the curd, it is still malleable and soft. Cheesemakers can press the soft curd into molds to create standardized shapes.

Molds can take the form of baskets or hoops. Basket molds are only open on one end, and hoop molds are bottomless, meaning they only wrap around the sides of the curd. In either case, the cheesemaker presses the milled curd mixture into the mold and leaves it there for a certain amount of time to solidify into the right shape. Most molds are round or rectangular, resulting in cylinders or blocks of cheese.

Step 10: Aging the Cheese

Some cheeses — like cheddar, brie and Parmesan — must age to reach their final form. Aging occurs in a controlled, cool environment. As the cheese ages, molecular changes cause the cheese to harden and the flavor to intensify. The aging process can take anywhere from a few days to many years. Mold can also develop during aging, which adds unique color and flavor to the cheese.

Once the cheese has finished aging, it is finally ready for consumers to enjoy. Retailers sell cheese in whole wheels, blocks or wedges to make it easier for people to buy the amount they want.

Why Is Cheese Aged?

Aging cheese is a vital part of the cheesemaking process that impacts its:

• Flavor: Aging is the main factor that brings out the varied flavors in different cheeses. Enzymes break down proteins and fats, creating a range of intricate compounds that shape the cheese’s distinct flavor profile. Cheese flavors range from mild and creamy to sharp, nutty, tangy or pungent.
• Texture: Evaporation lowers moisture content during cheese aging, creating a firmer and crumblier texture. The breakdown of proteins and fats also affects the cheese’s texture, causing it to become smoother and more spreadable in some cases.
• Aroma: As proteins and fats break down during aging, aromatic compounds also develop. The release of these compounds gives aged cheeses their distinct and often intense aromas. The combination of flavor and aroma makes for a multisensory eating experience.
• Microbial balance: The cheese aging process depends on the activity of different microorganisms — such as bacteria and molds — that inhabit the cheese. Various cheese varieties need specific microbial communities to achieve their desired characteristics.
• Rind formation: While aging, certain cheeses form natural rinds that act as protective layers. These rinds are edible and add flavor and texture, but people can also remove them before eating. Other rinds — like bloomy, washed or flavored rinds — need extra intervention to form.
• Depth: Aged cheeses usually have more complex and deep flavors. The interaction of compounds formed during the aging process produces a nuanced taste that cheese enthusiasts enjoy.
• Preservation: In the past, people aged cheese to preserve excess milk. They could then consume cheese during times when fresh milk was less available.

How Is Cheese Aged?

Aging cheese doesn’t just mean leaving it lying around for a while. It is a carefully controlled and timed process, and even subtle changes can affect the texture and taste of the finished cheese. Cheesemakers usually age cheese in cool environments with relatively high humidity levels. Another term for aging is ripening.

Two basic types of ripening can take place:

• Interior-ripening: Cheesemakers coat interior-ripened cheeses with an artificial rind like wax to protect the surface. The rind causes the aging process to occur from the inside out. Two common examples of interior-ripened cheese are cheddar and Swiss cheese.
• Surface-ripening: Surface-ripened cheeses are not sealed off on the outside, so a natural rind develops with the help of bacteria. This process causes the cheese to age from the outside in. Brie and Muenster are two examples of surface-ripened cheese.

Cheesemakers can control the surface-ripening process to encourage different molds to form. These include:

1. Red Mold

As the name suggests, red mold cheeses have a reddish rind. Some popular cheeses with red mold rinds include French Morbier, Reblochon and taleggio. Red mold cheeses are also often called washed rind cheeses because of how they’re aged. Cheesemakers store these cheeses in a very humid environment and wash them frequently in some type of liquid, such as wine or a salty brine. The thinner the cheese, the more the liquid permeates and softens it.

2. White Mold

Cheesemakers spray or rub a white penicillin mold onto aging cheeses to create white mold cheeses, also known as bloomy rind cheeses. When these cheeses finish aging, they’re covered in a fuzzy white mold. This process results in soft, creamy and pasty cheese. The most popular type of white mold cheese is brie, which has a silky smoothness and mild flavor. Some other examples include French Normandy Camembert, Le Chevrot and St. Marcellin.

3. Blue Mold

Some aged cheese has mold on the rind and throughout the inside of the cheese. Blue cheeses — like the ever-popular French Roquefort, creamy Gorgonzola or English blue Stilton — contain streaks of blue or green mold and have a characteristically sharp flavor. To make blue cheese, cheesemakers add mold spores to the cheese during the cheesemaking process. Then, they encourage the mold to grow and spread throughout the cheese during aging by poking air tunnels into it.

The Aging Process for Different Cheeses

Explore the aging process for various aged cheeses below:

• Parmesan: Parmesan undergoes an extended aging period, often for over a year. Cheesemakers brine and air-dry the cheese, promoting a hard texture and concentrated flavor. Aging rooms with controlled conditions help enzymes break down proteins and fats, forming granules and creating the cheese’s signature nutty flavor and crystalline texture.
• Asiago: Asiago cheese comes in two types — fresh Asiago pressato and aged Asiago d’Allevo. To age Asiago, cheesemakers salt and air-dry the wheels before transferring them to aging rooms. The wheels can mature from a few months to over a year. The cheese goes from mild and buttery when young to robust and tangy as it matures.
• Cheddar: After forming the curds, cheesemakers press the cheese to remove extra whey. Then, they cut it into small pieces, add salt and press it again. Aging cheddar changes its texture to crumbly and intensifies its sharp flavors.
• Gouda: Post-curd formation, Gouda curds undergo pressing, draining and a brine bath. Aging rooms come next, where the Gouda stays for a year or more. The result is a firmer texture, enriched flavors and caramel undertones.
• Gorgonzola: Gorgonzola is a creamy blue cheese with blue-green veins. Curd puncturing introduces air for mold growth, and then the cheese is aged in cool, humid conditions. This nurturing environment leads to a creamy consistency and robust, tangy flavor.
• Alpine-style: Alpine-style cheeses originate from European mountainous regions. After forming the curds, cheesemakers press and brine the cheese, then age it for several months to years. Flipping and brushing cheese wheels as they mature creates distinct rinds, resulting in firm, dense textures with nutty, fruity and earthy notes.
• Brick: Brick cheese is a semi-soft, pale cheese with an orange-hued rind. Once the curds form, cheesemakers press and brine the cheese before aging it for a few weeks to a few months. During aging, cheesemakers wash brick cheese with brine to give it its distinct aroma.

How Is Fresh Cheese Made?

Fresh cheeses —  like feta, ricotta or fresh mozzarella — tend to be smooth, creamy and mild in flavor. The main difference between fresh cheese and other types is that they spend little to no time aging.

Fresh cheeses must still go through the bulk of the cheesemaking process but to varying degrees. For example, you can make cottage cheese by draining some whey off after initially forming curds. For other fresh cheeses, you must continue to strain the curds to remove more moisture and pack the cheese into a shape. Some fresh cheese is simple to make, which is why many home cooks attempt to make it in their own kitchens.

How Are Different Cheeses Made?

Each type of cheese undergoes a distinct process, even if the differences are subtle. Let’s look at how cheesemakers make different types:

• Fresh cheese: Fresh cheese results from heating milk and mixing it with a source of acidity, like lemon juice or vinegar. Examples include feta and cottage cheese.
• Stretch-cured cheese: Stretch-cured cheese results from submerging the curds in hot water and stretching them into a pliable delicacy. Examples include mozzarella and burrata.
• Soft-ripened cheese: Soft-ripened cheeses result from pressing clumps of cheese curds into a specific shape and draining excess moisture. Cheesemakers then add mold to the cheese to form a white, moldy rind. Examples include brie and Camembert.
• Semi-soft cheese: Semi-soft cheese results from lightly pressing the curds to remove the whey and then aging to develop a natural or washed rind. Examples include havarti and Muenster.
• Semi-hard cheese: Semi-hard cheese results from pressing the curd to remove most of the whey and moisture and aging it for longer than semi-soft cheese. Examples include cheddar and Edam.
• Hard cheese: Hard cheeses result from heavily pressing the curd and leaving it to age for a long time. Examples include Asiago and Parmesan.
• Processed cheese: Processed cheese results from shredding, blending and emulsifying natural cheeses with salt and other ingredients.

Delicious Artisanal Cheeses From S. Clyde Weaver

At S. Clyde Weaver, we know our cheese. In fact, we have a century of experience curating and crafting recipes for delicious artisan cheeses, meats and other delicacies to brighten Americans’ tables. We sell various high-quality cheeses, including cheddar, Swiss and Gouda selections as well as creamy, delicious cheese spreads. Some of our cheeses are aged for many years to produce the perfect texture and flavor, using the same methods as we did in 1920.

What are you waiting for? Shop our range of cheeses online to have them delivered to your door!