Cheese is not only an ingredient in a large number of dishes, desserts and snacks. This is a wonderful, fragrant, tasty product that can decorate the festive table and shade the taste of noble wine, as well as become a wonderful dessert.
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Cheese variety
On the shop windows you can find a huge variety of types of cheese. This and cream cheese, such as mascarpone, ricotta, and solid - Dutch, Gouda, Parmesan, and processed. Each of the varieties has its own nuances in the production process, and, consequently, significant taste differences.
The main criteria for distinguishing soft cheese from hard cheese: consistency, amount of moisture, fat content, ripening time.
Hard Cheese
These are the most common and familiar cheeses for most people. They are characterized by a dense solid structure, covered with a wax or natural shell. The products in question are used for slicing or grating. Their feature is that they dry out very quickly. Therefore, cheese cutting is prepared a few minutes before serving.
Hard cheeses contain no more than 50% liquid in their composition. About 10 kg of product is obtained from 10 liters of milk. To get rid of excess moisture using methods of pressure, pressing, heating the product.
Dairy products of hard varieties ripen long enough - from 3 months to 3 years. The shorter the ripening period, the cheaper the price of cheese.
Cheeses of the considered varieties, such as cheddar, Altai, Parmesan, are characterized by a rich taste and strong specific aroma. Moreover, these products have a reduced fat content of about 50-55%.
Noble mold in such cheeses does not ripen, so moldy hard cheeses are extremely rare.
Soft Cheese Varieties
According to the general classification, soft cheeses are products that have a creamy consistency, a delicate creamy taste and do not require additional processing, i.e. are not smoked or melted. Such cheeses contain up to 67% moisture and a lot of fat, so they are easy to spread on a sandwich.
Soft cheeses practically do not need to ripen and are ready for use immediately after production. Some varieties are left to ripen for a short period of time. At the same time, the cheese ripens on the outside, covered with a dense crust, and inside remains the same soft and tender.
There are varieties of soft cheeses with mold.