What is cheddar made of

The only difference between white cheddar vs orange cheddar cheese is that cheesemakers use an additive like annatto to give orange cheddar its color. When you want to know how to make cheddar cheese that's among the best stuff on the planet, just ask a Wisconsin cheesemaker. We've been making cheddar cheese for years — since before we were even a state — and today we make as much cheddar as they do in all the United Kingdom, the birthplace of this champion of cheeses.

We're always working to make a better cheddar — our cheesemakers are constantly perfecting old-world recipes and innovating new techniques. From aged cheddar to cheddar-jack and cheddar blue varieties, Wisconsin cheesemakers do more with cheddar than their English counterparts ever dreamed of. This is why we've won so many more awards for our cheddars and other cheeses than any other state or country.

So, next time you're looking for the best cheddar you can lay your hands on, just pick up a chunk with a Proudly Wisconsin Cheese badge on the label.

That way you know your cheddar cheese is made by the best cheesemakers in the world. Craving award-winning aged cheddar, pining for parmesan, or searching for a new cheese to try?

Explore our directory of Wisconsin cheesemakers and retailers who offer online cheese shopping and get cheese shipped right to your door. What are you waiting for? In Wisconsin, we make more flavors, varieties, and styles of cheese than anywhere else in the world. We believe in tradition, producing everything from Italian classics, like parmesan and ricotta , to swiss cheese and cheddar varieties. The cheesemaker monitors the acidity and temperature of the curd closely here.

Cheddaring contributes enormously to the final taste and texture of our award-winning cheese. Finally, the curd is milled into small chips before being salted, again by hand. The use of cheesecloth is a vital and historical way of allowing the cheese to gradually dry and develop a rind.

Industrialised, mass-produced cheddar is sealed and matured in plastic wrapped blocks. Our whole cheeses weigh around 26Kg and are matured for up to 24 months in our closely monitored maturing stores. Generally, the older the cheese, the stronger the flavour.

This image illustrates beautifully the significance the environment makes to the maturing cheddar cheese. The one on the left was matured in the natural environment of The Cheddar Caves; the one on the right within one of our own stores. In December , we started maturing some of our cheese in the nearby caves within Cheddar Gorge. The environmental conditions were perfect for cheese maturing; constant temperature and high humidity.

So why is Cheddar made throughout the world? For lots of reasons: the recipe developed in the s was a cheese-making method that was easy to industrialise and an efficient way to make cheese, so it was adopted by many as the best way to make cheese from milk. It also can be sold young or old, suffers from few defects or problems and travels well. The recipe was spread by people leaving the West-Country to go to the Americas and the Antipodes, taking their cheese-making expertise with them, whilst various dairy professionals, such as Joseph Harding who refined the Cheddar-making method, went on to teach the recipe to farmers in Scotland and the New World.

As Cheddar started to be made throughout the UK and world, however, its characteristics changed the cheese evolved in each area. The majority of Cheddar is industrially made in block vacuum-packed form, rather than individual truckles being cloth bound to allow them to breathe, and is matured quickly in warmer temperatures, producing moister cheeses which often have sharp tang but not as much complexity.

The sweet and crystalline Cheddars are a bit of a bugbear to the traditional Cheddar makers who believe Cheddar should have a savoury flavour listen here to Jamie Montgomery speaking about this. Well, there are three Cheddar makers that still make traditional farm Cheddar in Somerset, near to Shepton Mallet and Wells.

It is said that the true home of Cheddar is in Somerset, just south of the town of Cheddar, where the rolling Mendip hills limestone soils give superb grazing. So what does Cheddar mean to these three traditional Cheddar-makers? The texture is firm yet buttery, and the curd has flavours of caramelised milk, hazelnut, and bitter herbs.

Concerned that introduction of rindless block cheeses and frequent use of pasteurised milk was further reducing the unique characteristics of Cheddar made in south-west England, these three last traditional Cheddar-makers grouped together to determine stricter rules than those dictated by the West-Country PDO.

Only eight miles apart, they all follow a similar recipe, yet their cheeses taste wonderfully different from each other. Any good cheesemonger will tell quote their names when describing traditional cheddar, and say that proper Cheddar should be made from unpasteurised milk, cloth-bound, farm- and hand-made. Mrs Montgomery was looking through the book and saw a picture of Cheddar curds hanging over a cooler.

At the time, cheddaring made the whey extraction process faster and more efficient. A number of different techniques were introduced to protect cheddar from weight loss and mold. Initially, salting the rind was common practice, then buttering it.

When cheap cotton—made possible by slavery—became available in the late 18th century, cheesemakers found that wrapping the fabric around the cheese and coating it with lard created an excellent protective seal.

Today, most cheddars are aged in plastic or wax which, on an efficiency level, protect the cheese even better. Finally, and most importantly, there was an increased understanding and adoption of modern hygiene standards across the cheesemaking industry, which ushered in a dramatic improvement in consistency and food safety. Regionality has always had an impact on cheesemaking; differences between local milks traditionally affected the flavor of cheese and informed the preferences of the people eating it.