Welcome To Our Cheese Site

Written and maintained by Professor Arthur R. Hill

Dept. of Food Science, University of Guelph, Canada

Cheese making has been an important Canadian domestic and export industry for the past 400 years-almost as long as the fur trade. Farms such the author's former family farm pictured here continue to produce milk for the Canadian cheese industry which is in continuous growth with respect to both quantity and variety of cheese. I hope you enjoy this site and that you'll consider taking our five day hands-on cheese course. The next offering is April 26-30, 2010. For more information go to http://www.uoguelph.ca/foodscience/shortcourselist/.

The Dept. of Food Science, University of Guelph, also maintains a Dairy Science and Technology Education website, which was written and is maintained by Prof. Douglas Goff. Dairy Science education has been part of our mandate at the Ontario Agricultural College, University of Guelph, for more than 125 years, and we are proud to be able to use the internet to continue this long-standing tradition. If you are interested, please also have a look at our Dairy Science and Technology Education Series.

We have also included here a document entitled Making Cheese at Home, which includes some helpful references, several simple cheese making procedures and information about sourcing cheese making supplies.

1. INTRODUCTION TO CHEESE MAKING

2. RECOMMENDED REFERENCES

Section B: Analytical

3. PROCESS AND QUALITY CONTROL PROCEDURES

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Cheese Sampling

3.3 Total Solids

3.4 Titratable Acidity

3.5 pH

3.6 Babcock Methods for Milk Fat

3.7 Cheese Salt

3.8 Culture Activity Test

3.9 Detection of Bacteriophage

3.10 Inhibitory Substances

3.11 Rennet Activity

3.12 Yeasts and Moulds

3.13 Presumptive Coliforms

3.14 Staphylococci

Section C: Milk

4. RAW MILK QUALITY

4.1 The Principal Milk Components

4.2 Factors affecting gross milk composition

4.3 Milk as a growth medium

4.4 Types of microorganisms and their activity in milk

4.5 Pathogenic Bacteria

4.6 Antibiotics

4.7 Mastitic Milk

4.8 Raw Milk quality tests

5. TREATMENT OF MILK FOR CHEESE MAKING

5.1 Clarification

5.2 Standardization of cheese milk composition

5.3 Heat treatments

5.4 Homogenization

5.5 Additives to Cheese milk

6. STANDARDIZATION OF MILK FOR CHEESE MAKING

6.1 P/F, FDM and CN

6.2 Methods of Standardizing

6.3 Units

6.4 Calculations

6.5 Addition Of Cream

6.6. General Guidelines for Standardization

Section D: Acidification and Coagulation

7. CULTURES

7.1 General Functions of Cheese Cultures

7.2 General characteristics of lactic acid cultures

7.3 Classification of Lactic Acid Cultures

7. 4 Summary: technological properties of lactic acid cultures

7.5 Secondary Cultures

7.6 Culture Production, Distribution and Storage

7.7 Bacteriophage (bacterial viruses)

8. COAGULATION

8.1 Milk Structure

8.2 Enzymic Coagulation of Milk

8.3 Acid coagulation

8.4 Heat-Acid coagulation

Section E: Manufacture, Ripening, Process Control and Yield Efficiency

9. CHEESE MAKING STEP BY STEP

9.1 Ripening the Milk

9.2 Setting the Vat

9.3 Cutting The Curd

9.4 Cooking

9.5 Draining

9.6 Washing

9.7 Curd Handling

9.8 Pressing

9.9 Salting

10. RIPENING AND PACKAGING

10.1 Ripening processes: chemical and physical changes

10.2 Principal Ripening Agents

10.3 Cheese Composition for Optimal Curing

10.4 Temperature of Curing

10.5 Humidity of Curing

10.6 Ripening Treatments

10.7 Packaging

11. PROCESS CONTROL

11.1 The Objectives of Cheese Manufacturing

11.2 Moisture Control

11.3 pH Control

11.4 Mineral Control

11.5 Texture Control

11.6 Flavour Control

12. YIELD EFFICIENCY

12.1 Distribution of Components During Cheese Making

12.2 Factors Affecting Yield

12.3 Principles of Yield Optimization

12.4 Yield Control

12.5 Recovery of Milk Components

12.6 Yield Prediction

13. DEFECTS AND GRADING

13.1 Defects

13.2 Grading

14. SANITATION

Section F: Selected Recipes

15. SOFT-RIPENED CHEESE

A. Feta Cheese

B. Camembert Cheese

C. Blue Cheese

16. SEMI-HARD CHEESE -- WASHED

A. Brine Brick

B. Colby

C. Gouda

D. Montasio (Friulano)

17. FIRM TO HARD CHEESE: LOW TEMPERATURE: PROVOLONE, CHEDDAR

A. Provolone

B. Cheddar

FIRM TO HARD CHEESE: HIGH TEMPERATURE: ROMANO, SWISS

C. Romano

D. Swiss Cheese

18. HEAT-ACID PRECIPITATED CHEESE

A. Ricotta Cheese

B. Queso Blanco (Frying Cheese)

C. Paneer

19. FRESH CHEESE

A. Cottage Cheese - Short Set

B. Quark

C. Cream Cheese

20. PROCESS CHEESE

20.1 Introduction

20.2 Standards: Canadian Regulations

20.3 Ingredients

20.4 Process Systems

20.5 Microbiology

20.6 Calculations

20.7 Procedure

Section G: Some Alternate Technologies

21. LOW FAT CHEESE

21.1 Importance of Fat In Cheese

21.2 Current Status of Low-fat Cheese

21.3 Effects of Reduced-Fat On Cheese Composition

21.4 Defects

21.5 Low-fat Cheddar Make Schedule

21.6 Reduced Cholesterol

22. CHEESE MAKING FROM ULTRAFILTERED MILK

22.1. Terms and Principles

22.2 Benefits of UF in the Dairy Industry

22.3 Properties of UF Milk Retentates

22.4 Development of UF Applications in the Cheese Industry

23. CHEESE SUBSTITUTES

23.1 Why:

23.2 Threat or Opportunity

23.3 Varieties currently available in US

23.4 Types of Substitutes

23.4 Cheddar Cheese Substitute

Section H: Ways to Use Whey

24. WHEY PROCESSING

Figure 1.1 Flowchart of Cheese Making Process.

Figure 3.1. Culture Activity Test

Figure 4.1 Seasonal variation of fat, protein, lactose and protein:fat ratio in Ontario producer milk

Figure 5.1 Membrane concentration/fractionation

Figure 5.2 Microfiltration Flowchart

Figure 6.1 Seasonal variation in casein in Ontario producer milk and pooled silo (plant) milk. (a) Milk casein content in kg/hl; and (b) Casein number (CN) as a percentage of total nitrogen.

Figure 7.1 Natural Fermentation of Raw Milk

Figure 8.1 Structural elements of milk. After Walstra and Jenness, 1984. Dairy Chemistry and Physics, Wiley & Sons, N.Y.

Figure 10.1 Cheddar cheese composition curing. (A) New Zealand standards for Premium and First Grade Cheddar cheese. (B) Typical ranges for high quality Canadian Cheddar. Note: pH measured between 3 and 14 days after manufacture.

Figure 24.1 Whey processing & utilization

Table 1.1 Some properties of cheese categorized according to type of coagulation and procedures used for pH and moisture control.

Table 1.2 Typical composition (% by weight) of some cheese varieties.

Table 4.1 Typical gross composition (kg/100kg) of cow, dairy sheep and goat milk (Wong et al. 1988).

Table 4.2 The principal caseins and some properties of importance to cheese making

Table 4.3 The principal whey proteins and some properties of importance to cheese making

Table 4.4 Typical fat and protein contents (kg/100 kg) for the milk of several breeds of dairy cows (from various sources).

Table 6.1. Some cheese varieties with some characteristics, composition and suggested ratio of protein/fat in standardized milk. Fat and moisture levels for most varieties correspond to definitions given in the Canada Agricultural Products Act and Regulations, Section 28.

Table 7.1 Some lactic acid bacteria commonly used in cheese making.

Table 9.1 Record of Manufacture

Table 9.2 Record of Quality Control

Table 11.1a Pasteurized Milk Cheddar Cheese (also for Heat Treatment Milk) - Record of Manufacture

Table 11.1b Raw Milk Cheddar Cheese - Record of Manufacture

Table 11.1c High Moisture Cheddar - Record of Manufacture

Table 12.1. Distribution of milk components during cheese making (% by weight) and percent transfer from milk to cheese.

Table 13.2 Cheddar Cheese Judging Score Card - Agriculture Canada Grading System

Table 20.1 Process cheese composition control: Example

Table 20.2 Process cheese composition control

Table 22.1 Ultra filtration of whole milk. Typical composition of concentrate and permeate System: polysulfone membrane in tubular configuration, small pilot plant, batch operation at 50C (Glover, 1985)