You love cheese, have tasted many varieties or attended a tasting or two. But you still miss some of the most used words or terms in the world of 0, so we bring you this Dictionary for cheese lovers.
Some will sound strange to you and others you’ve probably heard more than once. Still, it never hurts to learn new words, ready?
Refining: Process carried out on the cheese once it has been elaborated. Here it acquires its personalized flavor, texture and aromas. It differs from the ripening process in that this is the period of time that a cheese is aged. The ripening phase is how we “pamper” the cheese so that it has its own characteristics during the ripening process.
Ripening chamber: Room where the cheeses are left to mature. The higher the temperature, the earlier these cheeses will ripen, with a certain risk of developing overly intense flavors. Otherwise, a low temperature will cause the cheeses to mature more slowly, this is usually used for raw milk cheeses.
Tasting: Tactical tasting where we use the 5 senses to appreciate the different details of the cheeses. Aromas, exterior and interior aspects, flavor and persistence in the mouth and a wide variety of other characteristics are appreciated.
Brushing: Process carried out on the cheese to eliminate excess mold that forms on the rind.
Rind: It is the surface of the cheese. It can be natural or artificial: natural rinds are formed by cheese but in a harder state and in the case of artificial rind, it is formed by kerosene, plastic or waxes.
Curing: This is the final process in cheese making and marks the texture and fundamentally the final flavor of the cheese. During the curing process, the cheese acquires characteristics based on its environment and the time spent in the curing process.
Whey removal: Elimination of the whey resulting from the coagulation process.
Ferments: These are bacteria used in the cheese making process to transform lactose (milk sugar) into lactic acid. This is also known as lactic fermentation.
Lactose: Amount of sugar in milk and other dairy products. It is formed by glucose and galactose (both sugars) and is the main element to give flavor to milk.
Morga/Remelo: Small layer that appears in some cheeses that are exposed to high humidity, it is formed by small microorganisms.
Pasteurization: A process that milk undergoes, consisting of subjecting it to high temperatures to destroy microorganisms found in it, without altering its composition.
Pressing: Action performed on the cheese mainly to drain, form the rind and shape it. To do this, the curd is poured into a mold and pressure is exerted on it.
Cottage cheese: also called ricotta, is a type of cheese obtained from the whey left over from the cheese making process. This whey is treated at high temperatures to form a solid mass which, after draining and cooling, becomes cottage cheese.
Drying room: Room where the cheeses are left to mature, controlling the temperature, humidity and other factors to achieve the typical characteristics of the cheese, such as flavor, aromas…
Whey: It is the liquid part resulting from the milk coagulation process when making cheese.
Brine: area where quantities of salt are dissolved in water. Food is poured into it to salt it, in our case to salt the cheese.
Turophilia: and finally this word that defines those of us who love cheese and cannot live without it, turophilia: “cheese lovers”.
Now you have this dictionary for cheese lovers, with those words that you may have heard thousands of times but never found their meaning.
