And let everyone around say "Syyyyyyr!" :)

Before you start making homemade cheese, stock up on the necessary equipment. You must have a submersible cooking thermometer because it is critical to keep the milk at the right temperature. If milk is overheated, no cheese will come out.
I warmed up the milk in a slow cooker- very comfortably. But you can do this in a regular saucepan in a water bath.
You will need long and wide knife to cut the milk clot. I used a cooking spatula.
Prepare in advance cheese pressing mold And textile. Until you have figured out what will act as a form, do not start anything!
I bought a small colander for pressing cheese (lower diameter 12 cm, upper diameter 15 cm, height 8 cm). Many home cheese makers use 1 liter plastic buckets for molds, melting or drilling holes in the bottom and walls of the bucket. On the Internet you can find special cheese molds for sale (expensive!), But, in my opinion, a colander is enough at first. On top of the cheese mass laid out in a mold, you need to put a circle of a suitable size - such that the gap between it and the walls of the mold is about 0.5 cm. A load is placed on the circle, and under this weight the circle gradually lowers, which is why the gap is needed. I picked up a plastic cover of a suitable diameter (14 cm).
They write that the fabric should be quite dense so that less milk protein leaks into the whey. But I took an ordinary gauze folded in half, and the result suited me.
This is about inventory. Now about the ingredients.

To make good cheese, you need good milk. Preferably home or farm. I made cheese from fresh, unboiled homemade milk. We take milk from a neighbor, she is a neat and tidy woman, so I am confident in the quality of milk and I can afford to cook ordinary sour-milk cottage cheese and fermented cheese from it. Early in the morning, a neighbor milked a cow, in the afternoon I made cheese from this milk.
To make rennet cheese, you need a special enzyme. Now it's not a problem to buy plant enzyme Meito Japanese production. It is inexpensive, high quality and easy to use. Sometimes Meito is sold in pharmacies, but the easiest way is to find it and buy it online.
To make rennet cheese from fresh homemade milk, these two ingredients are enough.
But what if you don’t have homemade milk from a trusted cow, but only store-bought milk? Or farmer's, which you preferred to boil for safety? In it, together with the enzyme, it is necessary to add lactic acid bacteria (LAB). If you have the opportunity to buy a special starter for cheese, buy a starter. But you can do without it. To do this, they use either store-bought sour cream (not all! You will have to empirically find out in which sour cream there are workable IBCs), or sour cream starter (can be found on the Internet, just like the Meito enzyme). Since I didn’t need this third ingredient, I don’t have my own experience with adding sour cream or sourdough. I got the information from here:
http://www.povarenok.ru/recipes/show/74828/
Whether you are going to make cheese from homemade milk or from store milk, in any case, I advise you to read it, especially the correspondence in the comments with questions from beginners - you can clearly see what kind of rake you can step on. For example, heat milk to 80 ° C, yeah :)
I made cheese according to a slightly different algorithm - although similar, which is natural.
Let's move on to the process in pictures.
Meito plant enzyme for making cheese is sold in these bags.

The content of the sachet is designed for 100 liters of milk. The instruction on the packet suggests dissolving all the enzyme in water at once, and if you intend to make cheese from a whole tank of milk, it is logical to do just that. But in a diluted form, the enzyme is stored much worse, and for three liters you need quite a bit of enzyme. Therefore, it is better to pour it "a little bit", and continue to store the rest in a dry form.

To separate the desired part, pour the enzyme in an even strip of 10 cm along the ruler.

Separate with a knife 1 cm, i.e. tenth. This amount of enzyme is enough for 10 liters of milk.

If you, like me, are going to make cheese from 3 liters of milk, divide this pinch of enzyme with a knife into three more parts. Enzyme granules are on average the same size as dry yeast granules - but, unlike yeast, they do not stick together, and it is not difficult to separate the desired part. This smallest pinch, one of three, is enough to make cheese from 3 liters of milk.

Heat milk to 37°C. Measure the temperature with an immersion cooking thermometer.
I made cheese in a slow cooker and used the Yogurt program, which heats milk to 40 ° C. Three liters of cold milk warmed up to the temperature I needed for about 40 minutes. As far as I understand, a range of up to 35 to 39 degrees is suitable for the Meito enzyme to work, I stopped at 37 ° C.
Dilute the previously measured amount of enzyme in a spoonful of warm water until the granules dissolve, pour into a saucepan with warmed milk and stir well. I stirred with a whisk for about a minute, capturing the entire volume of the multicooker bowl so that the enzyme was distributed evenly.
Leave for about an hour to form a milk clot. In the multicooker, it is enough to close the lid and turn off the device. If you have been heating milk in a bain-marie, pour hot water into the outer pot of water from time to time, or heat it gently to keep the inner pot of milk warm.
After 40 minutes, the milk with the enzyme in my slow cooker turned into a delicate milk jelly. I waited another 20 minutes until a greenish-yellow cloudy-transparent serum appeared on top of the milk jelly.
With a wide and long knife (I have a culinary spatula), cut the milk clot into squares with a side of about 1-1.5 cm.

That is, it will turn out to be squares on the surface, and columns in the thickness of the clot. Now we need to somehow manage to cut them also inside to get cubes. I did this by dipping a spatula from the middle of the bowl, at an angle. Cheese makers have special grids on frames for cutting milk clot, one with vertical rows of wire, the other with horizontal ones ... but in a three-liter saucepan you can somehow manage with improvised means.

Gently, slowly mix the contents of the bowl. Break large pieces from the bottom with a spoon into smaller pieces, but try not to touch the rest. They are very tender, and if you overdo it, the clots will turn out to be flakes.

Now you need to heat the mass again, to about 38-39 ° C. In a multicooker, it is enough to turn on the Yogurt program, and after about 15 minutes check the result with a thermometer. Again, very gently mix the contents of the bowl and leave for 15-20 minutes in the switched off multicooker. Well, or do the same with a saucepan in a water bath.
After 15-20 minutes, you will see that the cheese grain has sunk to the bottom of the bowl, and the whey is on top. Pour into a separate bowl that part of the whey that can be drained without touching the cheese grain. Whey will make excellent bread, pies, pancakes or waffles. They also make brine for pickled cheeses on it, but I salted the cheese in a different way (and baked it on whey).

Prepare a mold for pressing cheese and cover it with a cloth.

Put the cheese grain in the form.

Leave for 10-15 minutes so that the future cheese is pressed a little under its own weight, and part of the whey is glass. By the way, the resulting curd can be left to drain to the consistency you need, and then eat it with pleasure. It is sweet, without the slightest sourness, soft milky. I read that such cottage cheese can be beaten with a blender and used to make cheesecake - interesting, but I have not tried to do this. I was attracted by cheese with holes :) and I moved on.
As soon as the cheese mass is pressed a little (you can gently move it with a spoon so that the whey drains faster), place a circle of a suitable diameter on top and set the weight.
I picked up a convenient plastic lid from an enameled container.

As a load, I used a 1.5 liter jar of water. It would be possible to take a two-liter, but I certainly wanted cheese with holes. The more pressed the cheese, the less chance of holes.
Under a load of ~1.9 kg (1.5 l of water + can weight), the cheese spent 12 hours at a temperature of 18°C. During this time, I took it out of the colander three times and turned it over to evenly press it and get a smooth cheese head. The colander is slanted, and if the cheese is not turned over, it will turn out to be trapezoidal in section.
See how the cheese has shrunk in the mold.

From 3 liters of milk at this stage, cheese weighing 560 g was obtained.

The pressed cheese must be salted.
I was afraid of both oversalting and undersalting - but as a result, I turned out perfectly. Well, to our taste :)
I blotted the cheese out of the mold with a paper towel from the whey and rubbed coarse sea salt from all sides. Some salt stuck, and then salt crystals began to crumble. I put the cheese grated with salt on the bottom of a large colander and left it at room temperature (20-22 ° C).
At 20-22 ° C, the cheese lay for 20 hours. During this time, I wiped it several times with a paper towel from the serum and turned it over. I rubbed it twice more with salt. The cheese gave out a little in the sides and bounced, so I reasonably hoped for holes. He acquired a dense crust, and, along with the serum, continued to lose weight.
At the end of this stage, the scales showed 485 g.

Young cheese is ready. It can be stored up to 7 days. The taste of the cheese will gradually change.
Wash the salted and dried cheese with cold water, wrap it in damp gauze and put it in the refrigerator. Do not pack the cheese tightly, it must breathe. Let the cheese dry out rather than become soft and moldy! Turn it over from time to time.
I put cheese wrapped in cheesecloth in a colander, and put the colander in a large pot and covered with a lid. Turned over periodically. After about a day, his smell changed - the shades of whey went away, the aroma became clean, milky, fresh. So the cheese I spent still about two days at 9°C and was solemnly cut to the New Year's table.

The holes are gone!
I think three factors contributed to this. Firstly, the milk contained the correct MCD, which can be considered pure luck, since I did not deal with them separately :) Secondly, I was not going to store the cheese for a long time, so I did not press it too hard. And thirdly, the cheese ripened at a temperature of 20-22°C, favorable for the LBC. But since I'm not an expert at all, but a beginner, this is nothing more than a beginner's reasoning. I'd love to hear comments from more experienced cheese makers!

Oh yes, holes are holes, but the main thing is still taste :)
Normal young cheese. Delicious. Moderately salty. In general, cheese and cheese, I bought this in Georgian stalls - and now I will do it myself. I look forward to how delicious a Greek salad with summer vegetables will be with him ... And in general, there would be cheese, and there are a great many uses for it!

Ufff, it was easier to make another cheese than to write all this!
And whoever has read it, well done, and he will get a wonderful cheeserrrr :))
Good luck!

What are cheese starters?

In order to get cheese, you must first ferment the milk.

For many people, this does not seem to be a problem - everyone knows perfectly well that milk turns sour without outside help. Of course, if milk is left warm, it will ferment under the influence of those lactic acid bacteria that are literally everywhere. This is how our grandmothers get curdled milk.

But when making cheese, everything is a little more complicated.

In order to get one or another type of cheese, you need strictly defined strains of bacteria. Ordinary bacteria that produce curdled milk will not work in 95% of cases. To get high-quality cheese of one kind or another, it is necessary buy a special starter for cheese.

To obtain homemade cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream or hard cheese, completely different types of bacteria are needed, which are contained in various starter cultures. It is the starter cultures that allow you to fully reveal the taste and aroma of cheeses, they determine the consistency of the cheese head, its pattern.

In the industrial production of cheese, mother sourdough is usually used, which is obtained by growing one or another type of lactic acid bacteria in milk. However, in home cheesemaking it is difficult and unsafe to preserve such a starter, therefore, at home, other starters for cheese are used - the so-called "direct addition starters".

Starter cultures for home cheese making are divided into mesophilic, thermophilic and auxiliary. The cultures contained in mesophilic and thermophilic starters increase the possibility of obtaining and revealing a full, ripe and pure cheese taste. And auxiliary starters serve (as the name implies) to achieve auxiliary purposes, such as accelerating the maturation of cheese or protecting it from unnecessary butyric fermentation.

How are cheese starters different from enzymes?

Often, newcomers to cheesemaking can make a very common mistake - they confuse cheese starters and enzymes. Sometimes you can even hear the phrase “We make cheese with meito sourdough”. Although meito is an enzyme ... Or another mistake - beginners sometimes take only leaven or only enzyme, although you need both.

What is the difference? In fact, everything is simple:

• enzymes turn the milk into a clot and allow the hard curd to be separated from the whey
• cheese starters they also give the cheese flavors, affect its color, aroma, texture and aging time

Those. for normal cheese making, we need both components - with the help of an enzyme, we turn milk into a clot, and already with sourdough we already give our cheese the required taste, aroma and texture.

Where to buy cheese starters?

Today, there is still a common misconception that you can only buy cheese starter in a pharmacy. Perhaps it was so once upon a time. Yes, and ferments in such a situation could be called an enzyme (see above).

But today the situation is fundamentally different - you will practically not find cheese starters in the pharmacy! And no salesperson at the pharmacy anyway can't give you good advice on their application.

Therefore, today we can strongly recommend purchasing starter cultures only in specialized cheese-making stores. Here you will find not only an excellent assortment of dry starter cultures, but you can always get competent recommendations on their use.

Buy starter for cheese one kind or another you can always in our store. The range is shown on the page above.

In this article:

Indispensable components for making cheese

In the cheese production process, enzymes and starter cultures are indispensable components. If the former are responsible for the speed of milk curdling, then the latter are responsible for the unique taste and usefulness of the finished product.

Enzymes are:

• animal origin;
• plant origin (isolated from plants);
• artificial (chemical) origin.

Enzymes of animal origin are represented by the rennet component, which is a salted and dried piece of the stomach of calves, piglets, chickens and other mammals. Pepsin, which is found in these mammalian stomachs, is an effective curdling agent for milk during cheese making.

Rennet has an affordable cost.

But at the same time, the content of animal particles reduces the shelf life of both the pepsin itself and the cheese produced. It is also necessary to strictly adhere to certain proportions when adding it, because an excess of rennet will lead to bitterness of the cheese.

To the virtues plant enzymes can be attributed to the low cost and relatively long shelf life of the manufactured cheese. It is also quite active and has a low consumption (1 gram per 100 liters of milk). The most popular enzyme is "meito" made in Japan.

artificial pepsin characterized by a high price (pharmacy pepsin or acidin pepsin)

It also dissolves for quite a long time (about 5 minutes) and slowly curdles milk (more than two hours), significantly increasing the complexity of the production process. Uneconomical consumption and the presence of hydrochloric acid in the composition reduce the number of fans of this additive.

The Importance of Starter Cultures in the Cheese Making Process

To give the cheese a taste, smell and texture, starters are needed that contain such lactic acid bacteria necessary for the body.

A cheese maker can impart flavor to cheese, even without the use of special bacteria. For example, ordinary kefir or yogurt can act as a starter.

All laboratory starter cultures that are used on an industrial scale may be called differently, but contain all the same lactic acid bacteria (lacto- and bifidobacteria).

Which today has become very expensive and not available every day. In fact, this is fermented milk with a certain processing of the clot and aging. More precisely, not even milk, but cottage cheese. However, in order for the clot to have certain qualities, different cheese starters are used. There are a lot of them on the market today. Some are designed for making soft cheese, others are hard, and within each category there will be more varieties that have a number of distinctive features. Today our goal is to look at the basic ways of making cheese.

cheese making idea

She must have visited many. A tasty, popular and expensive product is made from ordinary milk, which is plentiful in summer, and its cost is low. However, it should be borne in mind that in order to get a quality product, you need to be trained and understand the technology, as well as be sure to purchase starters for cheeses. Of course, milk will ferment in a natural way, but the result will not be what you want at all. Get the usual yogurt.

This cannot be allowed. Therefore, pure cheese starters are used, thanks to which the product receives its properties. It is the bacteria that allow the cheese to get exactly the final taste and color that we are used to.

Starters and enzymes for cheese

Many people think that cooking cheese is very simple. He took milk, poured a special composition into it and waited a bit. In fact, this is an art, especially when it comes to hard varieties that take a long time to mature. Enzymes are used in cheese making to ferment milk as quickly as possible. Then the starter is launched into the finished mass. And now they are very different from each other.

Enzymes

Without them, milk will ferment for a long time, and there is a risk that the taste will leave much to be desired. It is generally accepted that abomasum is the ideal home substitute. It must be prepared in advance, dried in a room closed from insects to the state of parchment, and then an enzyme is prepared on its basis. However, no one is doing this today. Moreover, homemade rennet does not compare in its characteristics with those produced by modern industry. But it can be used if nothing else is available. And it will definitely give a better result than pharmacy pepsin.

Overview of offers

There are many different enzymes on the market today that can be used to make cheese for home use or on an industrial scale. Most often, these are rennet cheese starters, which are used today to prepare the vast majority of varieties.

• Enzyme Naturen veal, animal origin. It is distinguished by a very attractive cost, but it also has its drawbacks. If you are using it for the first time, then pay attention to the dosage. The slightest change in dosage can lead to the fact that the noble taste is spoiled by bitterness. In addition, the shelf life of the finished product will be less than that of a similar product prepared using a chemical enzyme.
• Chy-Max chymosin is obtained artificially. It gives an excellent yield of the finished product without bitterness and with a long shelf life. In addition, the shelf life of cheese is greatly increased. No cons were found, however, since the enzyme is obtained artificially, there are doubts about its harmlessness. But no evidence for this has been found.
• "Pepsin" is an expensive drug that is quite difficult to find on sale. An analogue is "Acidin-pepsin", which is also not cheap, it is difficult to dissolve in water, and the process of fermentation with it is greatly delayed.
• Enzymes of plant origin, such as Meito. Synthesizes its fungus. On the one hand, it does not give bitterness, and even vegetarians can eat the finished product. On the other hand, it is quite difficult to find it in free sale.

Making homemade cheese

Unlike production, which is within the strict limits of technological maps and sanitary inspection requirements, at home you will be much freer in your choice. Please note that this is only in case the finished product is intended exclusively for your family, and not for sale. Sourdough for homemade cheese is not required, it is enough to use one of the enzymes listed above. However, if you want to get exquisite varieties that have certain taste qualities, then you should take care of acquiring special bacterial cultures.

Starter cultures for cheeses

So, after you've got a nice curd, it's time to think about using bacteria to turn it into a fine hard cheese. Mixtures of bacterial cultures affect the taste, aroma and texture, and also determine the ripening time of the cheese. Today, there are a large number of companies on the market that offer various crops in small packages (sachets) for home use, as well as for sale on an industrial scale. In order to orient a little in the variety of offers on the market, we distinguish two main types:

• Thermophilic starter for cheese works great at high temperatures (30-40 degrees). However, bacteria are able to survive even at 65 degrees. That is why they are used in the production of Italian draft cheeses. This is "Mozzarella", which has an unforgettable taste and consumer love. This allows the manufacturer to profitably sell the product and make a quick profit. The main strains of thermophilic bacteria are Streptococcus and Lactobacillus. It is these microorganisms that allow us to have gourmet cheeses in the kitchen.
• Mesophilic starter for cheese.

The basis of cheese making

Mesophilic starter for cheese is used most often in production. With its help, soft and fresh cheeses (feta), fresh aged varieties (Camembert, Capricorn), semi-soft (Gouda, Maasdam), as well as the famous hard ones (Cheddar, Parmesan, " Emmetal"). Strains can be divided into two groups:

• Lactococcus cremoris work at a temperature of 25-30 degrees. They can be used alone or in combination with other strains of this class of bacteria. So it turns out "Cheddar", "Gouda", "Emmental".
• Lactococcus diacetylactis produce a lot of carbon dioxide. Therefore, they are most often used for the production of delicate products with a porous structure. It can be feta, cheese, blue cheese.

How to handle sourdough?

Like enzymes, they are all powder, a bit like milk powder. It is produced under sterile conditions and then quickly dried. The buyer receives the product in a sterile package. Once the cheese starters are unpacked, they must be handled with extreme care. You need to store them in the freezer, at a temperature of -8 degrees. Be sure to close the package tightly. In this form, it can retain its properties for two years. Be sure to use a sterile spoon each time to get the next dose of powder.

To introduce a culture of sourdough in the process of making cheese, you need to heat the mass to the required temperature and remove from heat. Now the right amount of starter is poured onto the surface of the milk. After 2-3 minutes, when it is saturated with moisture, you can carefully mix the mass with a large slotted spoon. The movements must be very careful, do not mix too quickly or froth the milk.

It remains to cover the vessel with a lid and leave it in a warm place for the time that is implied by a certain recipe. During this time, the bacteria will multiply and create the primary mass, which will then be molded and aged at a certain temperature.

well, a very useful article, of course I'm not the author, the author is F.V. Kosikovsky
THE ART OF CHEESE MAKING

From the journal "In the world of science" (Russian translation of "Scientific American") No. 7, 1985

If you travel around the world in search of different cheeses, you can count about 2000 varieties. Despite the differences in properties, they can be divided into 20 main varieties. Moreover, the production of all these 20 varieties is based on the same process. Cheeses are made from the milk of mammals, mainly (but not always) cow's milk. Under the influence of acid or rennet, milk coagulates with the formation of a dense clot and whey. What happens next determines what kind of cheese will be on your table - whether it will be homemade cheese, or cheddar, or Emmental, or some other.

It is believed that cheese making originated in Southwest Asia about 8 thousand years ago. In the Roman Empire, there was an improvement in the technology of cheese production, new varieties were created, and between 60 BC. and 300 AD Cheese making spread throughout Europe. Etymologically, this is reflected in the fact that the modern English word for "cheese" - cheese, derived from the Old English cese, retained the Latin root caseus.

As a first approximation, cheeses can be divided into two groups - fresh and ripening. Fresh cheeses are made from milk curdled by acid or heat, and are eaten immediately after preparation; such cheeses are not stored. The most common representative of this group is homemade cheese (cottage cheese), it also includes cream cheese, neuchâtel, ricotta and mozzarella.

To obtain ripening cheeses, milk is fermented with lactic acid bacteria and coagulated under the influence of enzyme preparations. The curdled mass is pressed to remove whey, salted and aged for a long time under controlled conditions. Due to various physical and chemical changes occurring during this period, the product and and acquires the taste, aroma and texture characteristic of a particular type of cheese. In other words, the cheese matures (fresh cheeses are consumed without aging). The vast majority of cheeses are just ripe. Many of them are sold without any further processing, but a significant proportion of ripened cheeses are crushed, heated, and emulsified with sodium phosphate and other salts to produce processed cheeses.

The main raw material for cheese making is cow's milk, but in many parts of the world milk of other animals is preferred. So, in Southwest Asia and in the Mediterranean countries, cheeses are made mainly from the milk of goats and sheep. In France there are more than a million dairy goats, as well as a large number of sheep, whose bluish milk is mainly used to produce Roquefort cheese. Other animals whose milk is used to make cheese include Asiatic buffalo, camels, yaks, deer and llamas.

There is no doubt that the milk of almost all mammals can be used to produce edible (perhaps unique in its properties) cheeses, but the possibilities available here are limited, as they depend on the amount of milk produced by one individual and its availability. How to get, for example, milk from a guinea pig or from a 100-ton female whale? B. Herrington of Cornell University, who studied the composition of milk in small mammals, designed a successful milking machine for guinea pigs several years ago, but this did not lead to the development of cheese production from their milk, since milk from a huge number was required to obtain only one small head of cheese. animals. Just as the aroma and bouquet of wine depends on the grape variety, the taste of cheese depends on the nature of the milk, i.e. from which animal it was obtained. Goat milk cheeses have a sharper spicy smell than cow milk cheeses, which is mainly due to the enrichment of goat milk fats with capric, caprylic and caproic acids. Compared to cow's milk, goat's milk contains 2 times more caproic acid, 3 times more caprylic acid and 5 times more capric acid. These fatty acids differ from each other in the length of the hydrocarbon chain, which consists of six carbon atoms for caproic acid, eight for caprylic acid, and ten carbon atoms for capric acid. Each of them defines its own shade of spicy taste.

Sheep milk produces cheeses with a characteristic odor due to the high content of caprylic acid, which in this milk is 6 times more than in cow's milk and twice as much as in goat's. And the content of capric acid in sheep's milk is half that in goat's. Differences have little effect on the taste of fresh milk - a specific smell appears only after the milk cheese passes the ripening stage and fatty acids are formed from fats under the action of lipases.

The nature of the milk also influences the color of the cheese. The milk of sheep, Asiatic buffalo and some breeds of goats does not contain the yellow pigment b-carotene or contains very little of it; accordingly, cheeses obtained from such milk, as a rule, have a white color. The composition of cow's milk includes b-carotene; its amount depends on the time of year, the breed of the cow and her diet, and the natural color of the cheese obtained from cow's milk varies from straw to yellow.

The role of microorganisms

The ripening of cheese is the result of the vital activity of a large number of microorganisms, the concentration of which in cheese is much higher than in other staple foods. At the beginning of the cheese-making process (on the first day), the source material contains 1-2 billion of them per gram of weight. Subsequently, the population of microorganisms decreases due to lack of oxygen, high acidity of the medium, and the presence of inhibitory compounds. accumulating as the cheese matures. Fortunately, the organisms responsible for the maturation process remain viable and, apparently, even thrive. It is to the action of their cellular enzymes on lactose, fats and proteins that we owe the aroma of mature cheese.

Previously, bacteria and fungi that start milk fermentation got into milk spontaneously - simply from the air, by which they are transferred from surrounding plants and soils. Between 1890 and 1920 pure cultures of these microorganisms have been obtained in several laboratories in Europe and the USA. For example, microbiologist J. Sherman from Cornell University isolated and adapted for cultivation a strain of a gas-forming microorganism called Propionibacterium shermanii, which is necessary to give Swiss cheese a specific smell and form "eyes" in it.

Production of Cheddar cheese at one of the factories of Great Lakes CHEESE of New York, Inc. in Adams. PC. NY. First, cow's milk is prepared for cheese making: lactic acid bacteria necessary for fermentation and coloring agents are added to it. The rennet enzyme preparation is then introduced into the milk and it coagulates so that a clot is formed (1). After about 30 minutes, the clot is cut with wire knives to increase the surface of the cheese mass (2). The resulting curds are heated (3) for about an hour, which causes them to shrink and separate the whey (4). Then the grains are raked, lightly pressed and turned over many times (5-9), this is the so-called cheddaring, due to which the cheese acquires a characteristic texture. The resulting pieces are crushed (10), salted (11), wrapped in cloth (12-14), pressed in special forms - hoops (15) to remove excess whey. The cheeses taken out of the mold are packed in containers and kept for 2-12 months at a temperature of 2-10°C, constantly taking samples (16).

Roquefort cheese matures in a cave near the village of Roquefort in southern France. This semi-hard cheese, which is made from sheep's milk, requires the blue mold Penicillium roqueforli to mature. For cheese to be considered a real Roquefort, it must not only be made according to all the rules of technology, but also placed for maturation without fail in one of the limestone caves in the vicinity of Roquefort. French cheeses made in the same way, but from different milk, or ripened in other places, are called "bleu".
It soon became clear that the addition of pure cultures to low-quality raw milk inhibited the growth of undesirable microorganisms present in it and improved the properties of the resulting cheese. Later, when it came into practice to boil or pasteurize milk intended for cheese-making, pure cultures proved indispensable to provide the right amount of the required set of bacteria.

Improvement in the technology of cultivating bacteria has made it possible to obtain starter cultures - frozen concentrated preparations of bacteria. Starter cultures contain about 400 billion lactic acid bacteria cells per gram of weight. They begin to multiply immediately after being added to warm milk, so they can be introduced directly into the cheese mass container without pre-cultivation. Moreover, since bacterial cultures intended for starter cultures are selected for resistance to bacteriophages (bacteriophages are viruses of bacteria; they destroy their cells, thereby stopping the fermentation process), the use of starter cultures facilitates the cheese making process and makes it more predictable. .

Microorganisms also play another role in the maturation of many types of cheese. The vital activity of bacteria and fungi, introduced into the cheese mass or sown on its surface, gives the product the aroma and structure that determine its variety.

Regardless of the type of cheese produced, the entire cheese-making process can be divided into 9 stages: 1 - milk preparation, 2 - milk coagulation, clot formation, 3 - curd grinding. 4 - heating the cheese mass, 5 - separating excess whey, 6 - salting the cheese mass, 7 - introducing special microorganisms, 8 - pressing and 9 - maturation of the cheese. The properties of the final product depend on the conditions of each stage.

As a rule, raw or under-pasteurized milk is taken to obtain ripening cheeses. You can also use fully pasteurized milk, but this is less common. Enzymes of microorganisms that cannot withstand the high temperatures required for complete pasteurization improve the flavor of the cheese. In the US, ripened cheeses made from raw or underpasteurized milk are aged for at least 60 days. During this time, due to the presence of salt, the acidic reaction of the environment, the accumulation of metabolic products, and also due to the limited access to oxygen, organisms that produce toxic substances and spoil the taste of the product die.

One of the first procedures for preparing milk for cheese making can be the addition of coloring agents - (b-carotene, seed or plant extracts. For example, pepper extract is used, as well as annatto - a yellowish-red food coloring obtained from the pulp of the fruit of the tropical tree Bixa orellana.

The next step is to add the starter culture. Cultures for most ripening cheeses contain bacteria that produce only lactic acid (it is converted from milk sugar, lactose); this connection performs many necessary functions. Different cultures produce different amounts of lactic acid, and it varies widely. The amount of acid formed greatly affects the taste and texture of the cheese, as well as the formation of "eyes" in it.

For many naturally matured cheeses, starter cultures contain bacteria that grow well at moderate temperatures (between 20 and 37°C), such as Streptococcus lactis and S. cremoris. In the manufacture of Emmental type cheeses, curdled milk is heat treated at a higher temperature so that the starter cultures used should grow well at 37°C or higher; such bacteria include S. thermophilus, Lactobacillus bulgaricus and L. helveticus.

clot formation

Prepared milk is curdled into a dense smooth clot with the help of coagulating enzymes. Such an enzyme is chymosin, better known as rennet, or renin. It is contained in abomasum - an extract of abomasum (the fourth part of the stomach) of a calf. Enzymes extracted from the fungus Mucor miehei are also currently used. M. pusillus and Endothia parasiticus. Fungal renins are cheaper than calf rennet, and so they have recently captured almost half of the world market.

"Good" rennet turns milk into a smooth curd within 30 minutes at 32°C. The reaction proceeds in two stages. At the first stage, chymosin acts on one of the milk proteins - casein; other soluble proteins, lactalbumin and lactoglobulin, are not cleaved by chymosin. In the presence of calcium ions, the "fragments" of casein coagulate and form a gel with a fibrous structure. The gel fibers "stitch" together, forming a network and, if nothing breaks it, the gel mass turns into a smooth and dense clot, or necklace. The protein in the clot formed by the action of rennet is called paracasein; it contains calcium, so it is more correct to say "dicalcium paracasein".

At the third stage, wire knives or slices enter the process of making cheese, turning a large clot in a cheese-making vat into cheese grains - cubes with an edge of about 1.5 cm. Thus, the surface of the cheese mass increases.

Upon subsequent heating, the curds shrink and release the whey. At this stage, it is possible to influence the degree of moisture content of the final product by changing the heating temperature and the mixing speed of the crushed clot and whey. For cheddar and related cheeses, the optimum heating temperature is 37°C. Emmental cheese and Gruyère are heated to around 54°C. Heating continues for 1 - 1.5 hours. After that, the whey is drained, and a warm or hot mass remains in the vat, which already has a structure characteristic of this type of cheese, though still unripe.

The cheese maker can change the structure of the cheese mass by repeatedly turning it over in a vat or, conversely, by exposing it to pressure in cheese hoops or other forms. During this time, due to the vital activity of the starter culture, lactic acid accumulates and the chemical composition of the cheese mass changes.

Then comes the turn of the salting. In some cases, dry salt is used, which is added directly to the cheese mass even before it is molded. If the clot is pressed into bars or circles, then brine is preferred. In this case, unripe cheese is immersed in a concentrated salt solution for a certain time - from 2 to 72 hours, depending on the size of the cheese heads.

Structure of parmesan (speva) and camembert (right) cheeses. Above - micrographs (magnification x 2500). by R. Mare of Nestle Co., Switzerland. Below is a photograph of cut pieces of cheese. Parmesan is a hard cheese, while Camembert is a soft one.
If special microorganisms are required for the maturation of a given type of cheese, then they can be introduced into the brine. They may also be added to milk during the preparatory stages or scattered over the surface of unripened cheese.

At the pressing stage, the moist warm clot is placed in a wooden, plastic or metal mold or wrapped in a cloth and subjected to pressure, sometimes quite a lot. Pressing gives the cheese a dense texture and characteristic shape, and also removes excess whey and completes the consolidation of the clot. Pressing completes a series of procedures that together can be called the preparatory phase in obtaining a ripening cheese.

Next, the young cheese is kept under controlled conditions, in which the ripening process of the cheese takes place, which determines its quality. The central maturation event is the death of millions of lactic acid bacteria that were present in the starting material. This continues throughout the maturation phase. The dead bacterial cells are destroyed, and many intracellular enzymes are released from them, which, together with the remaining chymosin and milk enzymes, act on the proteins, fats and carbohydrates of the ripening cheese. As a result of the ongoing chemical transformations, the cheese begins to acquire its aroma and texture.

In the early stages of ripening, the cheese has little elasticity due to the presence of dicalcium paracasein in it. When heated, such cheese does not melt and does not become fibrous. As lactic acid accumulates in the clot, the bound calcium dissolves and a new compound is formed - monocalcium paracasein, which is soluble in warm salted water, stretches easily and melts evenly when heated.

After 48 hours of pressing, a significant portion of dicalcium paracasein is converted to monocalcium paracasein. With the constant presence of lactic acid, more and more of the bound calcium dissolves and some of the monocalcium paracasein is converted to calcium-free paracasein. This compound serves as a substrate for enzymes - proteinases, which break down proteins into peptones and peptides, and peptidases, which convert the resulting peptides into their constituent amino acids. As a result, soluble peptides, amino acids and amines accumulate in the ripening cheese, which are involved in creating the flavor characteristic of the cheese. The action of enzymes also leads to the fact that the structure of the clot, initially rigid, is partially destroyed and the product softens.

The change in the consistency of the cheese mass in the successive stages of the production of cheddar. When rennet is added, the future cheese has the consistency of milk, then, in a clot, it acquires the density of a pudding and, finally, after removing the whey, it becomes completely dense.
The aroma of mature cheese is determined by the combination of odorous degradation products of proteins, fats and carbohydrates, which must be finely balanced. An excess of one or another degradation product can lead to the appearance of an undesirable aftertaste: bitter, rancid, putrid or hydrogen sulfide. The art of the cheese maker lies precisely in achieving the desired balance of odorous substances.

If maturation is properly controlled, then cheese fats undergo partial hydrolysis (ie, splitting with the participation of water molecules) by microbial enzymes and milk lipase. The product of this reaction is free fatty acids. Some of them, such as capric, caprylic and caproic acids, give cheeses a piquant taste. The various ketones that contribute to the flavor, especially characteristic of blue cheeses, bleu and bleu, are formed from free fatty acids. It is also important that the hydrolysis of fats in ripening cheese slows down after a while, otherwise the cheese will inevitably acquire a sharp unpleasant taste and bad smell.

Lactose also contributes to the specific taste of the cheese. Lactose is converted to lactic acid and lactates, which in turn are converted to other organic compounds such as diacetyl.

During the ripening process, gas is constantly formed in the cheese. In Emmental cheese and cheddar, the only gas is carbon dioxide; in camembert and brie, ammonia can be released instead of CO2, which degrades the quality of the product. A constant source of carbon dioxide during the normal maturation of cheese are free amino acids, which are affected by the enzymes of specific bacteria, such as enterococci. H2 and H2S can form during cheese maturation, but this, like excess CO2, usually indicates abnormal fermentation and results in an unsuitable product.

"Eyes" are formed in cheeses that have a hard rind (Emmental cheese) or tightly wrapped in a plastic film that is poorly permeable to gases (Swiss cheese). This phenomenon is particularly pronounced if a Propionibacterium culture is added to the milk and the cheese is kept in a warm room for several weeks. "Eyes" are formed in place of bubbles of carbon dioxide.

Cheese varieties

The process described above, while remaining the same in principle, can be modified depending on which kind of cheese is desired. Let's illustrate this with a few examples. According to the generally accepted classification, cheeses are hard, semi-hard and soft. Hard cheeses include emmental (Swiss), cheddar and provolone. Cheddar (derived from the English village where it was first produced in the 17th century) usually matures for 5 to 12 months at temperatures between 2 and 10°C. As a rule, 9.5 kg of cheese are obtained from 100 kg of milk; the yield of the product depends on the fat and protein content of the milk and on the moisture content of the cheese mass at the final stage. The most characteristic feature of cheddar manufacturing technology is the so-called cheddarization, which consists in repeatedly turning over pieces of warm curd at the bottom of the cheese vat for several hours.

The maturation of cheese is critical to its texture and taste. The table lists the key stages of maturation for 20 widely used varieties of cheese, which are divided into hard, semi-hard and soft. Ripening cheeses - one of the two main groups of cheeses, the second is fresh cheeses, which include homemade cheese, cream cheese. ricotta and mozzarella. There is no ripening stage in the process of obtaining fresh cheeses.
Emmental cheeses acquire a golden rind as a result of daily rinsing of the surface. The cheese is famous for its sponginess, and in American cheese the "eyes" are larger than in European ones. Lactic acid fermentation in the production of Emmental cheeses is carried out by thermophilic bacteria, which are adapted to exist at a relatively high temperature. Enzymatic processes carried out by these bacteria occur mainly at the stage of pressing.
Provolone cheese is produced mainly in Italy, Argentina and the USA. In its early stages, its production is similar to that of mozzarella, a low-moisture cheese commonly used to make pizza. Provolone can formally be attributed to pasta filata - this is the name for viscous cheeses from a very elastic clot. The unripe cheese is molded into a sugar loaf, pear or ball and wrapped around with rope. It is usually smoked and then left to mature; smoking gives the cheese a specific flavor.

Semi-hard cheeses include Roquefort and Blue, while soft cheeses include Limburg, Camembert and Brie. These two groups of cheeses have little in common, except that both require air to ripen, which is necessary for the development of specific microorganisms: the mold Penicillium roqueforii in Roquefort and blue, the red bacteria Bacterium linens in Limburg cheese, the mold P. caseicolum (known among cheese makers called P. candidum) in camembert and brie. Each of these microorganisms is cultivated in a liquid medium and transferred to the cheese mass under sterile conditions.

Real Roquefort from sheep's milk is produced in the region south of Bordeaux and Grenoble, as well as in Corsica. To the north, French cheeses such as Roquefort are made from other types of milk and are called bleu. Similar bluish-veined cheeses made in the United States and other countries are called blues. The standard form in which Roquefort enters the market is a circle weighing about 2.5 kg. In order for this circle of cheese to "have the right" to be called Roquefort, it must be delivered to one of the natural caves near the village of Roquefort no later than eight days after production and ripen there for 3-4 months.

The blue mold P. roqueforii needed to ripen roquefort cheese requires less air than the white mold P. caseicolum; in addition, she is more enduring. Although there are many strains of P. roqueforii, only five or six are used to make Roquefort cheese. All of them are isolated from the air of the Roquefort caves, where they were formed as a result of natural selection, which has been operating for centuries.

Blue mold spores in the form of a powder are introduced into prepared milk or already into the cheese mass. During pressing, they remain at rest until the carbon dioxide in the natural channels of the cheese or in the artificial channels made with the help of steel spokes is replaced by air. In some cases, to create the desired cavities in the cheese mass, Leuconostoc gas-producing bacteria are introduced along with a standard culture of lactic acid bacteria. Cheeses ripened by blue mold are kept at 10°C and high relative humidity; this promotes the germination of dormant spores. After about 30 days, a branched greenish-blue mycelium is formed, the threads of which contain highly active proteinases and lipases. These enzymes act simultaneously with the enzymes normally functioning inside the cheese, and after 3-6 months the cheese acquires its specific taste.

Soft cheeses

One of the representatives of reddish cheeses, the ripening of which is associated with the habitation of bacteria on their surface, is Limburg cheese. The same group of cheeses includes Brique, Leadercrantz, Saint Pauline and Pont Leveque. The early ripening stage of these cheeses is characterized by the growth of wild yeasts on their surface, such as species of the genus Pichia. Yeast enzymes make the environment less acidic by raising the pH to about 5.5, which creates favorable conditions for the growth of Bacterium linens.

The first camembert was obtained in the French village of the same name by a certain Marie Arel in 1791. Since then, its production has spread to some other regions of France. According to the old tradition, cheese is made from raw milk, although there has been a recent trend to use pasteurized milk. Camembert is usually molded into 228g (half a pound) rounds.

The process of making brie and camembert is quite similar. Both varieties require the introduction of P. caseicolum into the cheese mass, the mycelium of which is white. Camembert and brie ripen from the surface to the center. Therefore, the cheese mass should not be molded into too thick circles, otherwise the outer parts ripen long before the core softens. Also, closer to the surface, the pH is higher and ammonia can form in the outer areas, causing a color change before the entire cheese circle is ripened.

Art or technology?

Comparing all the above considerations, the reader may come to the conclusion that cheese making is more of an art than a technology. In many countries you can find cheese makers who use the methods of their ancestors, i.e. simple tools and tricks. And side by side with them there is the cheese industry, whose enterprises produce the same cheeses in huge quantities, just as bread is baked in factories.

Most of the cheese produced in the world is a product obtained using modern technology. Huge vats, molecular membrane sieves, continuous conveyors, electronic curing devices, shredders and vacuum presses combine to produce amazingly high quality cheeses. The central process - lactic acid fermentation - is now carried out in containers protected by stainless steel caps and hidden from view, but its essence has not changed - the same thing happens in a 1000-liter copper boiler of a village cheese maker.

Nevertheless, in the United States, individual production of cheese at home is increasingly increasing. Recently, the American Cheese Society has even formed. Members of this society make Monterey Jack, Cheddar, Brie and some other varieties with their own hands. Just as small-scale wineries thrive in the grape-rich areas of California, small-scale breweries producing branded cheeses are likely to proliferate.

Literature
Fundamentals of dairy chemistry. Byron H. Webb, Arnold H. Johnson and John A. Alford. Avi Publishing Co., 1974.

Cheese and fermented milk foods. Frank Kosikowski. F. V. Kosikowski and Associates, P. O. Box 139, Brooktondale, N.Y. 14817, 1977.

Cheese varieties and descriptions. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Handbook No. 54, Agricultural Research Service, 1978.

Begunov V. L. A book about cheese - M .: Food Industry, 1974.
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