certain giving cohesiveness is part of the
pleasure of melted cheese. Stringy cheese can
be enjoyable on pizzas, but a nuisance in more
formal dishes. To understand cheese cooking,
we need to understand the chemistry of
melting.
Cheese Melting What is going on when we
melt a piece of cheese? Essentially two things.
First, at around 90ºF, the milk fat melts,
which makes the cheese more supple, and
often brings little beads of melted fat to the
surface. Then at higher temperatures —
around 130ºF/55ºC for soft cheeses,
150ºF/65ºC for Cheddar and Swiss types,
180ºF/82ºC for Parmesan and pecorino —
enough of the bonds holding the casein
proteins together are broken that the protein
matrix collapses, and the piece sags and flows
as a thick liquid. Melting behavior is largely
determined by water content. Low-moisture
hard cheeses require more heat to melt