How does milk become cheese?

How do we know?

↻ One of the pages with a moving picture

Old clay pots with holes held traces of milk.

1. Milk is mostly water, about 85%. It also holds fat, sugar and a protein called casein.
2. Cheesemakers add rennet or an acid. The casein clumps into soft lumps called curds. The watery leftover is whey.
3. The whey is drained off. Most of the milk’s sugar goes with it.
4. The curds are salted and pressed. Soft cheeses keep more water; hard cheeses keep less.

Archaeologists had found old clay pots full of tiny holes. Scientists tested fats soaked into the clay and found milk. The pots look like modern cheese strainers.

People in Kuyavia, Poland, were making cheese more than 7,000 years ago.

Cheese packs the milk’s protein and fat 6 to 12 times tighter than milk.

Wow number

6–12× Cheese packs the milk’s protein and fat 6 to 12 times tighter than milk!

Myth or fact?

Making cheese is mostly about taking water out of milk. Fact. Milk is about 85% water; cheese has much less.

Whey is the solid part of milk. Myth. Whey is the watery part. The solid clumps are curds.

Think about it

Why do you think people long ago turned milk into cheese instead of keeping it as milk?

Where in the world?

Kuyavia, Poland where people were making cheese more than 7,000 years ago — 52.7° N, 18.4° E.

Where these facts come from

Every number on page 87, and who measured it

Has this changed?

How milk becomes cheese is not going to change.

The date for the oldest cheese is “so far”. Archaeologists may find older cheese strainers.

Words from this page

casein

A protein in milk that clumps when you add rennet or an acid.

rennet

A natural ingredient that makes milk clump into curds.

curds

The soft lumps that form when milk clumps.

whey

The watery liquid left over after the curds form.

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