Cheese press. Nicolas McComber / Getty Images Signature via Canva Pro
Pressed-curd cheeses is a cheese-making term. It refers to cheeses whose milk curds have been pressed during the cheese making process to force some of the liquid called “whey” out of them.
Typically, cheeses made from curd that has been pressed end up to be semi-firm or firm cheeses.
When a cheese mould has been filled with the pressed curd, the cheesemaker has an opportunity to expel yet more whey from the curd by pressing down on the curd in the mould. Cheese moulds will have perforations or openings in them to allow the whey to run off. How much is expelled depends simply upon how hard you press. For softer cheeses, such as Blue Cheeses, you want to leave some whey content in, and so you press lightly.
Once the cheese is taken out of the mould, a further pressing can take place by putting the moulded cheese under a cheese press to expel even more whey. You would do this for cheeses that are meant to end up very dry, such as Cheshire cheese.
Other cheese technical terms
- Affinage
- Casein
- Cooked-Curd Cheeses
- Creamery
- Double-Cream Cheese
- Fat Content of Cheeses
- Longhorn Cheese
- Pate (of a Cheese)
- 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