Cheese Production

Cheese is an important product of fermentative lactic acid bacteria. Because of its low water content, and acidic pH, bacterial growth is severely inhibited. This causes cheese to spoil much more slowly than other milk products. Consequently, the art of cheese production has spread throughout Europe, each country manufacturing many different types of cheeses. Cheese production has three steps: curd formation, curd treatment and curd ripening. Curd formation can use mare, ewe, cow or goat milk to produce “sour” or “sweet” curd. Sour curd is produced by fermentative lactic acid bacteria as mentioned above. Sweet curd is produced by adding an enzyme called renin instead of bacteria to curdle the milk. The curd is separated from the draining. The curd can be used directly to make unripened cheeses such as ricotta or cottage cheese or can undergo further processing to make a ripened cheese. Curd treatment consists of condensing and squeezing to form dense, hard curd. It is then molded into the desired shape, salted and mixed with different types of secondary microflora. Secondary microflora ripen the cheese and will determine the final texture and aroma of each type of cheese. For hard cheeses such as Cheddar, curds are further compressed and the bacteria particular for the cheese is added. The Cheddar is wrapped in wax or plastic to prevent contamination and then incubated to allow the bacteria to do its work. For soft ripened cheeses, a microbe, usually mold, is added to the surface of the cheese that produces a protein-digesting enzyme. This enzyme breaks apart the curds and causes the cheese to become creamy and spreadable. This would then lead to the wonderful tasting cheese that we eat and use in our foods