The Cheddar Cheese Challenge
By the early 1950s, the market for Swiss cheese had started to decline. Many families preferred a different kind of cheese. Often this meant a milder-tasting cheese. With less demand for Swiss cheese, many Green County factories closed. Some factories switched to making cheddar, mozzarella, and other types of cheese.
Casper realized he needed another product to stay in business. Cheddar cheese was, and still is, the most popular cheese made in Wisconsin. Casper decided to add cheddar making to his cheese factory to attract more customers. Cheddar did not take as long to cure as Swiss cheese, so it could be sold more quickly and didn’t need to be stored as long. That would be good for business, too.
Casper used stainless-steel vats like these for making cheddar cheese. He used the round copper kettles only for his Swiss cheese.
Making cheddar cheese is also a very different process from making Swiss.
Casper made cheddar cheese by pouring milk into long stainless-steel vats instead of the round copper kettles used for his Swiss. He added a bacterial culture, but it was not the same one added to Swiss. Casper also added a coloring agent to make his cheddar cheese slightly orange. The coloring agent is called “annatto (uh nah toe).” Annatto is a natural vegetable dye made from annatto seeds. Casper then added rennet to the vat, which caused curds to form. As you’ll remember, he used rennet in his Swiss cheese, too.
Cheddar curds began to form as big mechanical arms automatically stirred the milk for about 30 minutes. When the milk was the same thickness as pudding, Casper and his workers pulled wire knives through the vat from one end to the other, and back and forth. The wire knives cut the coagulated milk into cubes. Remember that when Casper made Swiss cheese, he used a cheese harp instead.
Next, Casper gently heated the cheddar curds to 103 degrees. That was about 20 degrees lower than the temperature he used for his Swiss cheese curds. He drained the whey by opening a valve at the bottom of the vat. Remember that when Casper made Swiss cheese, he removed the bag of curds from the cheese kettle, leaving behind the whey.
At this stage in making his cheddar cheese, Casper added salt to the cheddar curds. The salt slowed down the bacterial culture and the formation of lactic acid. Without the salt, the curds would crumble and Casper wouldn’t be able to press them together to form the cheese.
As the whey was drained out of the vat, the pressure caused the cheddar curds to mat together. Curds filled the entire length of the vat. Casper and his workers cut the curds into 18-inch-long loaves. After about 30 minutes, the loaves were firm enough to be turned. Casper and his work team turned the loaves several times to remove as much whey as possible. “Cheddaring” is the name given to turning the loaves. It’s also where cheddar cheese got its name. Next, Casper ran the loaves through a cheddaring machine to cut the loaves into small chunks of curd. For many people, eating these fresh curds is a special treat. When you bite into a fresh curd, the cheese squeaks. That’s how you know the curd is fresh! And it’s part of the fun of eating fresh cheese curds.
One of Casper’s workers runs loaves of cheddar cheese through a cheddar mill. The machine cuts the loaves into small curds.
Casper and his crew scooped the small chunks of cheddar curd into buckets and dumped them into metal forms. They pressed these forms to remove any remaining whey. This step also shaped the curds into a smooth piece of cheddar cheese. When making Swiss cheese, Casper pressed the curd into the shape of a big wheel. But for his cheddar cheese, Casper pressed the curd into a rectangular shape. Casper pressed his Swiss cheese into 200-pound wheels. His cheddar was pressed into 40-pound blocks.
In this picture, the photographer focused on the rectangular cheddar cheese forms instead of the people. Casper and his workers lined these metal forms with cheesecloth before pressing the cheese.
Cheddar is cured at a lower temperature than Swiss cheese. Casper aged the cheddar in the curing room at 40 degrees. Just as with Swiss cheese, the longer cheddar cheese aged, the sharper and stronger the flavor. Casper aged some of his cheddar cheese for 3 years. The longer cheese ages, the more expensive it is to buy.
