288 Chapter 11
Semi - soft Ripened Cheese Group
The composition of semi - soft ripened cheeses
is given in Table 11.9.Brick Cheese
Brick cheese is a semi - soft variety that con-
tains at least 50% fat in dry matter and not
more than 44% moisture. Normally, the salt
content is 1.5%. The cheese is cured at a
temperature of not less than 1.7 ° C (35 ° F) for
at least 60 days. Addition of cheese color is
optional. Cheese milk is brought to a tem-
perature of 31.1 ° C (88 ° F) and subjected to
the action of a lactic acid - producing bacterial
culture. One or more of the clotting enzymes
is added to set the dairy ingredients to a semi -
solid mass.
The mass is cut into cubes with 0.95 - cm
(3/8 - inch) knives, stirred, and heated so that
the temperature rises slowly to 35.6 ° C (96 ° F).
The stirring is continued until the curd is suf-
fi ciently fi rm. Part of the whey is then
removed, and the mixture is diluted with
water or salt brine to control the acidity. The
curd is transferred to forms and drained.
During drainage it is pressed and turned.
After drainage, the curd is salted and the
smear culture ( Brevibacterium linens ) is
applied to the surface. The cheese is then
cured to develop the characteristics of brick
cheese.
Brick cheese for manufacturing conforms
to the defi nition and standard of identity for
brick cheese except that the dairy ingredients
are not pasteurized and curing is not required.
Brick Cheese Process : Milk is pasteur-
ized, tempered to 32 ° C (90 ° F) in a cheese
vat, and inoculated with 0.25% mesophiliccoagulum is then cut into small curd particles
and dipped into perforated forms. The mold
culture of Penicillium roqueforti and its
spores is mixed into the curd - whey mixture.
The whey drains out of the forms to form a
compact form which is then removed from
the hoops and dry salted. The ripening takes
place in a room held at 10 ° C (50 ° F) with 90%
to 95% humidity until the characteristic blue -
green mold develops.
Nuworld Cheese
Nuworld cheese is characterized by the pres-
ence of creamy - white mold, a white mutant
of Penicillium roqueforti , throughout the
cheese. The minimum milk fat content is
50% by weight of the solids and the maximum
moisture content is 46%. Nuworld cheese is
made from pasteurized dairy ingredients and
is at least 60 days old. The manufacturing
process is similar to that of blue cheese,
given above. The curd and whey mixture is
placed into forms permitting further drain-
age. While being placed in the forms, spores
of a white mutant of the mold Penicillium
roqueforti are added. The forms are turned
several times during drainage. When suffi -
ciently drained, the shaped curd is removed
from the forms and salted with dry salt or
brine. Perforations are then made in the
shaped curd and it is held at a temperature of
approximately 10 ° C (50 ° F) at 90% to 95%
relative humidity, until the characteristic
mold growth has developed. During storage,
the surface of the cheese may be scraped to
remove surface growth of undesirable micro-
organisms. Nuworld cheese has characteris-
tic sharp blue cheese fl avor without the color
of blue cheese.
Table 11.9. Approximate chemical composition of some semi - soft, ripened cheeses.
Cheese pH % Moisture % Fat % Fat in
dry matter% Protein % Salt % LactoseBrick 6.4 41.1 29.7 50.4 23.3 1.9 1.8
Munster 5.7 41.8 30.0 51.6 23.4 1.9 1.1
Monterrey Jack 5.7 42.0 29.6 51.0 23.5 2.0 2.8Adapted from Olson (1969) , Fox et al. (2000a) , Nath (1993)