Cheese ripening facts for kids

This old picture shows how dairy salt helps make Cheddar cheese. More salt means less water and slower ripening.

Cheese ripening is a super important step in making most cheeses. It's also called cheese maturation or affinage. This process gives each cheese its special flavor, feel, and look. Think of it as the cheese growing up!

During ripening, lots of cool changes happen inside the cheese. Tiny things like bacteria, enzymes from milk, and even some molds or yeasts work together. They transform the cheese, making it taste and feel just right. Almost all cheeses go through ripening, except for very fresh cheeses.

How Cheese Ripening Started

A cheese cave used to age cheeses

Long ago, cheese ripening was much simpler. People used natural places like cool cellars or caves to age their cheeses. These places had the right temperature and humidity to help the cheese change over time.

Some cheeses still use these old ways. For example, the famous blue cheese called Roquefort must ripen in special caves in south-western France.

But in the 1900s, things changed a lot with the invention of refrigeration. Now, cheese ripening is often done in big, controlled factories. This makes sure the cheese is always good quality. It also helps make cheese faster and sometimes cheaper.

The Ripening Process

This is very old Beemster cheese (over 26 months!). See the small white spots? Those are tyrosine crystals, which show it's well-aged.

After cheese is first made, the ripening process begins. This step is key because it creates the unique taste and texture of each cheese. How long a cheese ripens depends on the type and how it should taste. It can take anywhere from three weeks to two years or even more!

Many things affect how cheese ripens. The most important part is how enzymes work. But bacteria also play a big role in many cheeses. Here are some of the main helpers in this process:

• Rennet (or something similar)
• Starter bacteria and their enzymes
• Enzymes from the milk itself
• Other special bacteria
• Bacteria that aren't added on purpose but show up

Each of these parts changes the cheese in different ways. Cheese makers need to understand them to make sure the cheese is always good. These helpers cause three main changes in the cheese: glycolysis, proteolysis, and lipolysis. These are fancy words for how sugars, proteins, and fats break down.

Molds and Bacteria on Cheese

Cheese makers carefully control the temperature and humidity. This helps special molds grow on the surface of some cheeses. These mold-ripened cheeses, like Camembert and Brie, ripen much faster than hard cheeses. They can be ready in weeks, not months or years. This is because the fungi (molds) are very active.

Some cheeses ripen on the outside, like Camembert. Others ripen on the inside, like Stilton. Some cheeses, like Saint-Nectaire, even have yeasts helping with their flavor and outer coating. Other cheeses grow special bacteria on their surface, which gives them unique colors. For example, a type of bacteria called Brevibacterium linens makes an orange coating on some cheeses.

How Salt Helps

Making cheeses like Camembert is different from making Cheddar. For Camembert, the soft cheese curds are gently put into hoops. The liquid part, called whey, then drains out slowly, often overnight.

After draining, the cheese curds are put into a salty water bath called brine. This is very important! The amount of salt greatly affects how fast the proteins break down in the cheese. Salt also helps stop some bacteria from growing too much.

If white-mold spores weren't added to the milk earlier, the cheese maker will spray the cheese with them. Or they might dip the cheese in a bath with spores of molds like Penicillium candida.

What Ripening Does to Cheese

Cheese Eyes

Emmental cheese has these holes, called "eyes." Emmental tastes sweeter partly because of something called proline.

Have you ever seen the round holes in Swiss cheese, like Emmental? These holes are called "eyes." They are actually tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide gas. This gas is made by bacteria working inside the cheese.

In Swiss cheeses, a type of bacteria called propionibacteria makes these bubbles. In some Dutch cheeses, a different kind of bacteria makes the CO₂ bubbles from a substance called citrate.

Cheese Taste

Cheese ripening greatly changes how the final cheese tastes. If cheese isn't ripened, it often has no flavor at all! That's why almost all cheeses are ripened, except for very fresh ones.

Many things affect a cheese's taste. These include the proteins (called casein), the fat, and even the brine (salty water) used. For example, brine mixes with your saliva when you eat cheese. This helps deliver the flavor to your taste buds and also affects how moist the cheese feels.

Each type of cheese has its own special flavor secrets. For instance, proline is a substance found a lot in Emmental cheese. It's one reason why Emmental has its distinct sweet taste.