Making Artisan Cheese (7 page)

The disadvantage of homogenized milk:
It requires the addition of calcium chloride in order to form curds properly.

Artisan Advice

Milk taken late in a cow’s lactating cycle has a higher fat and protein content, making it better suited to producing cheese than milk taken soon after calving. Milk taken early in the lactating cycle contains colostrums, which prevent proper cheese formation.

Powdered Milk

Although it may sound a bit sacrilegious, you can make cheese from powdered milk. Because it is a low-fat product, you are limited to the types of cheeses you can make, primarily fresh cheeses such as quark or cottage cheese. But if you are in a pinch, drag out a box of good old powdered milk and go for it!

The advantage of powdered milk:
Convenience—you can keep it on the pantry shelf.

The disadvantage of powdered milk:
Only a limited number of cheeses can be produced with it.

UHT Milk

Ultra Heat-Treated (UHT) milk is popular in other parts of the world, but in the United States it barely makes a showing in the total consumer milk market. UHT milk has been treated at a whopping 275°F to 300°F (135°C–150°C). Ouch! Its popularity lies in the fact that it does not require refrigeration until after the package has been opened, thus giving it an extended shelf life. Walk into a French supermarket, and you will be amazed at the UHT milk displays sitting outside of refrigeration. Needless to say, this is a sterile product that cannot be used for cheese making.

Bottom line:
Not suitable for cheese making.

A Word on Lactose Intolerance

Mentioning lactose intolerance is enough to produce a pall over the brow of any committed cheese lover. This malady is a result of the body’s inability to produce enough of the lactase enzyme to enable it to digest milk. Virtually all infants produce lactase, but this ability diminishes by the age of four. And whereas all other mammals stop producing the enzyme, most adult humans are unique in that they still produce the enzyme in small quantities. Lactase is naturally occurring in unpasteurized milk, but it does not survive the heating that takes place during pasteurization.

So what are the options for the cheese lover with this affliction? You have three choices. First, start off with hard, aged cheeses. The majority of lactose is found in the whey, and harder cheeses have considerably less whey than softer cheeses. If softer cheeses are your desire, you may want to try goat’s-milk cheeses, because they are naturally lower in lactic acid, or try yogurt cheese, because yogurt contains bacteria that assist in the digestion of milk. Finally, you can reintroduce lactase into your cheeses with some of the popular digestive aides, such as LactAid and Lactase. Simply add it to your milk, as directed on the package, and let the milk sit refrigerated for twenty-four hours before you make your cheese. You may notice that the milk tastes slightly sweeter after treating, but no major change occurs in the milk.

Cultures and Rennet: The Other Pieces of the Puzzle

All cheese making is based on the coagulation of milk solids into a curd mass. There are essentially two ways to accomplish this, depending on what your recipe calls for—with an acid or with rennet. Rennet is an enzyme that coagulates milk and causes the curds to form (for more on curd formation, see
page 83
). In the case of an acid coagulation, the procedure is simple. An acid, typically in the form of lemon juice or vinegar, is added to heated milk, allowing the curd mass to form. With a rennet cheese, the milk must have the proper acidity for the rennet to be effective, and this requires using a starter culture.

Starter Cultures

A starter culture, as the name implies, is a mixture of milk bacteria that is added to milk with the distinct purpose of making it more acidic. As the bacteria consume the lactose, they produce a by-product called lactic acid. The longer the cultures thrive, the more acid they produce, the more soured the milk becomes, and the easier it is to contract the size of the curds, which will then expel more whey. This step is essential, because the more whey that is removed from the milk, the more the curd particles will be assisted in combining to form cheese.

The acidity will also affect the flavor of the cheese. Although it is obvious that overly acidic milk will result in a sour cheese, the same can be said for under-acidified milk. In the case of the latter, the curds will retain excessive amounts of whey, giving the cheese a puckerish flavor.

There are two types of starter cultures: mesophilic and thermophilic. Mesophilic cultures are moderate-temperature bacteria used when the curds are not going to be heated to higher than 102°F (30°C). Mesophilic cultures are typically used for Cheddars, Goudas, and other hard cheeses. Thermophilic cultures are heartier bacteria that can survive up to 132°F (55°C). They are used for making Swiss-style cheeses and the harder Italian cheeses, such as Parmesan and Romano. In addition to acidifying milk, these starter cultures play a key role in the flavor development of the harder cheeses.

Starter cultures come in two formats, a mother culture and a direct set. Both of these are available from the cheese making supply companies listed in the Resources section of this book (see
page 172
).

Artisan Advice

Starter cultures from a cheese-making supplier are a blend of various forms of lactocci, lactobacilli, and streptococci, combined to produce a specific flavor profile. But suppose you want to get started making your cheese right away and don’t want to wait for a shipment from the supplier. All you have to do is go to your local supermarket and purchase some buttermilk or yogurt. The active cultures in buttermilk are the low-temperature mesophilic type, which can be used for making pressed uncooked cheeses. Yogurt contains the high-temperature thermophilic type useful in making Parmesan and Romano.

A mother culture for making cheese has a thickened yogurtlike consistency and is rich in the beneficial bacteria that turn milk into cheese. Mother cultures are an old-fashioned and authentic way to make cheese and, like sourdough starter cultures used for making bread, they can be kept going indefinitely.

Rennet

Rennet is used for making the vast majority of cheeses. Rennet is not necessary if enough acidity is present in the milk to cause it to coagulate, but rennet does speed up the process and form a stronger, tighter curd, a characteristic that makes rennet essential for many of the classic harder cheeses.

Rennet comes in two forms, an animal product and a vegetable product. Animal rennet comes from the fourth stomach of an unweaned calf, kid, or lamb. Within the young animal’s stomach walls lies an enzyme called chymosin, which curdles the mother’s milk, making it easier for the young animal to digest. For centuries, cheese makers would add small strips of stomach (which contained chymosin) to the batch of milk that they were working with, creating the first modern rennet.

Romans also used a variety of plants to coagulate the milk. Non-animal rennet, such as bark from the fig tree, was often used in ancient Rome. Today’s vegetable rennet is based on a specific mold named
Muror miehei
. This mold contains
chymosin
and is identical in structure to the animal rennet.

Rennet and prepackaged starter cultures simplify cheese making and ensure even results for home cheese makers.

Acidity

The level of acidity throughout the cheese-making process is a crucial component for the cheese maker. The amount of acidity has a major effect on the texture of the cheese. The higher the acidity, the more moisture retained by the curds and the softer the cheese, all things being equal. The acidity will also affect the flavor of the cheese, giving it sharp flavors.

Acidity plays a crucial role in ripening the milk, because it is a byproduct of the interaction of the starter cultures with lactose. In the easier cheese recipes, less attention needs to be paid to the acidity levels of the milk, but as you progress into making more difficult cheeses, you should be comfortable with monitoring acidity.

Rennet is as old as cheese making—
It is widely known that the Romans used a variety of plants to coagulate milk.

The pH Scale