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DRAINING, CHEDDARING AND MELLOWING

When making cheddar or pasta filata, the whey is removed from the curd using a whey screen and a draining belt. This is called draining. The curd bed is then moved along in a solid mass allowing for acidification i.e. cheddaring and mellowing.

Tetra Pak offers a completely unique processing system for cheddar and pasta filata cheeses - the world’s only continuous production system for such products. This allows producers to achieve very precise salt and moisture content, and a high pH accuracy. A two-belt version is available for pasta filata and a four-belt version with salt dosing for cheddar varieties.

Our draining and cheddaring machines are fully integrated with the up and downstream equipment, ensuring optimum transfer with, for example, overlapping pump-outs.

The alternative, and more common way of draining and cheddaring cheeses is batch production. Tetra Pak also offers processing equipment for this method – which is more suitable for the production of artisanal, low capacity cheese making. In this case, the mellowing and salting are done manually in open finishing vats.