What Makes Cheese Have Different Varieties?

Why is one cheese different from another? While the conventions of flavor, texture, country of origin, and other factors may be the immediate answer, what makes these cheeses different at their core? Why are some cheeses white, while others are yellow or even blue? How can there be such vast texture differences when it is all just milk to start? Cheese is actually a very delicate food to make. Subtle changes can make an entirely different cheese, or ruin the cheese completely. Here are some of the distinctions in types of cheese and what makes them so different from one another.

Timing

While the window is still narrow, there is some margin of time difference between when a person separates the whey from the curds in different cheeses. This small difference in time can make a big difference in the composition of the cheese. A cheese that is left longer to separate will have more lactose, which changes the flavor distinctly. Obviously the time the cheese is left to age also plays a large part in the flavor and consistency, creating sub-types of cheeses as well as original typing. Timing is very delicate with cheese, and leaving it too long can totally ruin it instead of make a different cheese.

Bacteria

Bacteria is the basis for all cheese, and without controlled amounts of it, you would either have moldy milk, or moldy lumps of nothing. Different cheese types have both different types of bacteria, and different amounts of it. Even two companies making the same type of cheese may taste different because of a slight difference in the amount of bacteria used to create the cheese. The concentration of the starter bacteria, and how it is cultivated is the primary difference between cheeses, and even the slightest imbalance can change the composition, or in some cases, make an entirely different type of cheese.

pH Levels

The acid levels in the cheese are both byproducts of the acid in the original milk, and the bacterias work on the cheese. This is the difference that have the most tangible effect on cheese, and is what is often used to easily separate them. Some cheeses have a low margin for error in pH level, like Gouda and Swiss, while others, like cheddar, have a wide range of pH levels. Some cheeses, like mozzarella even have sub classifications based on the pH level of the cheese.