Coating and maturing

Transcript

Miel Meyer – Meyer Gouda Cheese

Coating is the protection of the cheese. It’s semi-permeable, so moisture can still leave the cheese and the cheese can breathe, as it were, and so the maturing process can continue.

Maturing of the cheese is just leaving the cheese on a shelf and letting it age, developing those flavours, giving the time for the curds to knit together in the cheese. The bacteria can still grow inside the cheese, moisture is still released and then the flavours concentrate. If you mature it for a long time, you get a stronger flavour.

Between 16 and 18 degrees is what we feel the best temperature for the maturing process. Humidity is about 80%. The humidity dictates the rate at which moisture is released. If the humidity is too low, moisture’s going to come out too quickly– too high, and it’s not going to come out at all.

The turning of the cheese is very important. If you’ve got a cheese sitting there, the under layer still wants to release moisture but obviously its sitting on something so it can’t do it effectively. If you flip the cheese every day, then both sides have just as much chance to release the moisture. You end up with a good full-bodied flavour throughout the cheese.