How Mold Helps Cheese

When most people think of mold, they picture something unwanted that is growing on their food. Most of the time, if your food has mold on it, you will have to throw it out or cut off the moldy bit. On cheese, however, mold is not always a bad thing, depending on the type of mold it is. In reality, both mold and bacteria are crucial to cheesemaking, but they are particular types of these substances. In many cases, people will refer to them as beneficial mold and bacteria to avoid confusion.

Bacteria In Cheese

Before understanding the relationship between mold and cheese, it helps to know about the role of bacteria in cheese. In reality, your favorite types of cheese (like mozzarella and cheddar) use beneficial bacteria to develop their texture and taste. The bacteria found in most cheese comes from the lactose found in milk. These bacteria are then cultured to grow and it is this process which creates the cheese we enjoy eating.

Blue Cheese

Although bacteria and mold are not the same thing, they are closely related and if there are beneficial bacteria, it stands to reason that there is also beneficial mold. This is most commonly found in blue cheese and in fact, all of the blue veins on the cheese are areas of mold growth. All of the mold found within blue cheese was developed by encouraging Penicillium bacteria to grow. It is usually introduced right after curds are put into containers where they drain and create a wheel of cheese, although other cheese that include the purposeful growth of mold may add the Penicillium bacteria at a different point.

Encouraging Mold Growth

If you take a look at your favorite blue cheese, you will notice that the blue segments appear in veins. These are the result of needling, the process in which wheels of (soon-to-be) blue cheese are pierced by a machine or by hand, creating many tiny openings. These openings give air a path to enter the cheese where it feeds the mold, allowing it to grow and create green or blue veins that give the blue cheese their name.

The mold which is most commonly added to blue cheese is known as Penicillium Roqueforti and gets its name from Roquefort, French. This town has many caves where Penicillium mold spores naturally occur. As such, it is no surprise that the blue cheese made from these spores, known as Roquefort, originated in the town.