Cooking & cutting cheese curd. Casarsa Guru / Getty Images via Canva Pro.
Cooked-curd cheeses is a cheese-making term. It refers to milk curds that have been heated during the cheese making process to a temperature between 48 and 56 C (118 to 132 F.)
Generally, cheeses made from curd that has been cooked are harder or more rubbery than cheeses whose curd was not.
After milk has been coagulated to separate into curds and whey, the whey is drained away, and the curd is cut to help more whey escape from it.
Then, the temperature of the curd is raised to the 48 to 56 C range. This heating encourages the curds to release more whey.
Cooked curd cheeses include hard cheeses such as Grana Padano, Parmesan and rubbery cheeses such as Emmenthal, Gruyere, and Tilsit.
Owing to the heating, the types of bacteria used for cooked-curd cheeses tend to be in the Lactobacilli or Streptococci family, as they can survive the heating well.
See also: Semi-Cooked Curd Cheeses
Other cheese technical terms
- Affinage
- Casein
- Creamery
- Double-Cream Cheese
- Fat Content of Cheeses
- Longhorn Cheese
- Pate (of a Cheese)
- Pressed-Curd Cheeses
- Raw Curd Cheeses
- Rennet
- Semi-Cooked Curd Cheeses
- Skim-Milk Cheeses
- Smear-Ripened Cheeses
- Stretched Curd Cheeses
- Sweet Curd Cheeses
- Triple-Cream Cheese
- Truckle
- Turophile
- Washed-Curd Cheeses