Cuttin' The Cheese

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I made another trip to the cheese factory the other day. This time they WERE making cheese and I can show you a few pictures. These pictures were taken through the glass window, so what looks like the old "double exposed" pictures of yesteryear is actually caused by reflections on the glass.

To begin making cheese, the long vats that you see in the picture are filled with milk. Next agents are added which make the milk gel - - - kind of like jello.


Next wire forms pass through the gelled cheese cutting it into strips, and then again across to further cut it down into short sections.

At this point the liquid portion, called whey, begins to separate away from the solid portion, called curds.


Next large paddles stir the curd to help separate it from the whey.

When that is finished, the curd is ready to be placed in a form to be pressed and aged into cheese - - - the longer it is aged, the sharper it becomes.

I personally like mild cheese the best - - - the milder the better. In fact, just give me the curds.

In the entryway of the factory there are some dairy product antiques.


Here we have two different styles of butter churns. You have probably seen the style on the left, but the one on the right works with a crank which has paddles attached on the inside. I think that might be a little easier than the other model - - - but both would require quite a bit of elbow grease!


Here we have a milk separator which pulled cream off of the unhomogenized milk. The separator is the contraption that looks like some sort of a mechanical cow.

In the foreground on the left is a crock - - - possibly for butter or milk or cream. That would be A LOT of butter or cream!


The two wooden objects are cheese round storage bins. The larger one, shown here, is quite rare. It was made specially to house Swiss cheese. When you lift the lid off the top you can see that it has space to stack up about 5 large Swiss rounds.

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