Daily Details, Part 3: Cheesemaking

I've saved it for last, but everything starts in the cheese room. Cheesemaking is a carefully calibrated process that determines how the cheese will behave during aging. So if something is slightly off at the early stages -- a pH or temperature too high or too low -- the effects aren't immediately noticeable, but down the road that cheese is going to come home with tattoos all over its face and a bad addiction to meth ... or it'll just taste funny. After you pull it out of the vat, all cheese looks the same and has the same mild, sweet flavor in the curd. Unwanted variations during the make process will impact the cheese as aging occurs, and can often lead to bitter flavors and undesirable textures in the cheese you're aiming for at the end of the line. Early mistakes can occasionally be calibrated by adjusting steps towards the end of the making process or in the aging environment. On a few rare occasions, unexpected variations can even lead to a new delicious cheese.

4) Cheeseroom--Where cheese is born:

The careful cleaning and sanitation steps I described from my first week are always performed before and after the cheese make in the exact same routine. Everyone works together to clean the equipment, molds, vat, press, table, floors, and walls. The vat is sanitized before the milk gets pumped into the vat from the bulk tank. The bulk tank, which is in the room on the other side of the cheese room wall, is also cleaned and sanitized before and after it receives the milk for storage. While the cheese is being made in the vat, all people handling the cheese are "scrubbed in" (hands and arms washed with soap, and then dipped in chlorine solution along with gloves). All the molds and surfaces are sanitized in anticipation for hooping and pressing.  We also splash chlorine solution on our aprons because sometimes a balancing act is required with the bigger wheels. It took a few weeks, but I thankfully don't need constant reminders about what I can and can't touch anymore. 

The cheese vat holds over 3000 lbs of milk. Cato Corner averages about 52,000 lbs of cheese production per year, so about 1,000 pounds per week. The size of any yield depends on the type of cheese, the season, and the size and moisture level of the curd required to make a particular cheese. Summer milk is lower in butter fat than winter milk, and it is also yields a yellower curd and cheese because of the beta carotene in the grass feed during summer.

Milk is pumped from the milking parlor in the barn into the bulk tank during milkings twice a day (see left). It is stored in the bulk tank until cheesemaking days, when it is pumped through pipes into the vat in the adjoining cheese room. State regulations may vary, but most cheesemaker will need to perform an antibiotic test to ensure that no antibiotics have passed through to the milk if any cows are being treated. Many cheesemakers will also keep samples of the milk from each batch as record-keeping or to send to labs for further periodic testing.

After the milk is pumped, it reaches a certain temperature in accordance with the recipe for the type of cheese. The temperature of the milk, and later the curd, is controlled by the vat's double-boiler type system. The vat is a giant metal tub with a hollow jacket area around it. Hot water is pumped through the jacket, which heats the vat, and thereby the curd.  After heating to the recipe's desired temperature, the starter culture and rennet are added. The starter culture creates flavor during aging and eats the lactose, thereby dropping the pH. Depending on the strain, the cultures are activated and/or killed by certain temperatures. So, keeping track of the desired temperatures is critical.  Different starters create different flavors and pH levels, and each cheese uses its own combination of strains. Starters are microscopic bacteria cultures housed in a simple powder substance and sprinkled into the vat (see right). The rennet is an enzyme in liquid-form that works to coagulate the milk into curd (see left). Rennet is very fragile and can be killed by chlorine, so it's important to be careful with the sanitizing solutions.

After a certain amount of time, we use a knife to test the vat to make sure a solid curd gel mass has been formed by the rennet. Then the entire vat is cut at once with large square wire cutters (see left). As I mentioned from my first day, I'm usually not the one in charge of doing this. First, Mark is the expert at perfectly cutting the curd. Second, the pressure from the weight of the curd is so great that I'm physically held back by the curd as if we are in an arm wrestling match that I'm losing horribly.

The curd, which is now separated from the whey, is stirred by two to three of us by hand and by giant metal rake. The curd is also heated to whatever the temperature the cheese requires by pumping more hot water through the vat's jacket. For some harder cheese temperatures can reach over 100 degrees. Then, the curd settles, i.e. sits there untouched, for ten minutes. Depending on the type of cheese, the whey is drained to a certain level and the curd is washed by adding hot water back to the whey. Draining and washing clears out some of the lactose, thereby removing the starter cultures' food and slowing down the pH drop. 

After some more mixing, stirring, and settling, the whey is drained again. This time all the whey is drained...all the way, ha. A strainer is placed on the vat to catch the curd. As the vat is emptying, we begin to hoop the cheese, with the exception of blue cheese which is salted and drained completely before hooping. Hooping might more accurately be called scooping. We scoop up the curds in small nets and pour them into the molds, which take many shapes and sizes. The big 25-pound wheels are made in large metal molds, while the smaller wheels are in white plastic molds. All the molds have holes similar to a colander, which allows for the drainage of excess whey (see top right, tiny holes visible at bottom of metal mold). The molds are flipped multiple times to ensure the wheels are evenly formed and the desired amount of moisture is removed. With the exception of soft, moist cheeses, the cheese wheels are then pressed in an air press between 15 to 45 minutes per side to drain more whey and smooth out the wheel. (air press picture to bottom right, which also shows red hand-held pH meter readily accessible on top). The next morning, the wheels get a second pressing and are immediately taken down to the brine.

During the entire make, each step is guided by timing, temperatures and pH level--each varies depending on the cheese. A pH meter is a critical tool for cheesemakers. The pH curve of the make process determines how the bacteria acts during aging, how it will taste, and how moist it will be. Therefore, careful notes are kept on the pH readings, the pressing times, the amount of cultures and rennet used and when they were added, as well as other notable observations such as any variations in the curd. If there is a variation with flavors once the cheese is aged, careful notes help the cheesemaker look back at all the variables to figure out why.

Wash room, rinse, repeat.