The art of Cheddar cheese manufacture

Manufacture of cheddar cheese

The traditional manufacture of cheddar cheese consists of

1. coagulating the milk containing a starter culture with rennet
2. cutting the resultant rennet coagulum into small cubes
3. heating and stirring the cubes with the concomitant production of a required amount of acid
4. whey removal
5. fusing the cubes of curd into slabs by cheddaring
6. cutting (milling) the cheddared curd
7. salting
8. pressing
9. packaging and ripening

Although it is impossible to completely separate the combined effects of some of these operations on the final quality of the cheese, they will as for as possible be considered individually.