How to Make Cheese in Bulk, With a Scaling Calculator

Cheese in bulk is mostly a lesson in yield: a gallon of goat milk makes about a pound and a half of fresh goat cheese, and the rest drains away as whey. Write the milk, culture and rennet as percentages, pasteurize in a vat and chart it, set the curd overnight, drain it, and salt it by weight. Weigh what comes out every run; the milk changes through the year and the yield with it. Done this way, a cheesemaker that made a gallon at a time makes about 300 cups from a 50-gallon vat, and the cost of a 4-ounce cup falls from $8.61 to $2.29. Below is the recipe at two sizes, the steps, the yield, what a cup costs at each size, and a free scaling calculator.

The short version

• Write milk, culture, rennet and salt as percentages.
• Pasteurize in the vat and keep the chart.
• Set the curd overnight at room temperature.
• Drain in bags or molds until it's the texture you sell.
• Salt by weight, then cup by weight.
• About a sixth of the milk becomes cheese: weigh every run.
• TaroStack keeps the recipe by weight, takes each batch's ingredients off stock and checks its yield. More below.

The recipe, by percentage

Housatonic Creamery, the made-up cheesemaker in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, I use in these examples, made fresh goat cheese a gallon at a time before its vat was licensed. The recipe, weighed:

The 430 pounds cost $378.83 in ingredients, nearly all of it milk. A 50-gallon vat makes about 75 pounds of fresh cheese; aged cheese yields less, a little under a pound for each gallon of milk. Margins are in cheese profit margin, and pricing in how to price cheese.

The steps, at 430 pounds

1. Pasteurize in the vat. 145°F held 30 minutes, the chart kept for the plant's records.
2. Cool and culture. To about 72°F; culture and a little rennet stirred in.
3. Set overnight. Covered, 12 to 18 hours, until the curd is firm and the whey clear.
4. Drain. Ladled into draining bags or molds, 6 to 12 hours.
5. Weigh and salt. The drained curd weighed, salt worked in by weight.
6. Cup by weight. 4 ounces a cup, lidded and chilled.
7. Label with a lot code. Every cup carries the vat's lot and date.

The run takes about 10 hours of labor across two days, with cleaning.

What a cup costs at each size

Milk by the bulk tank instead of the carton cuts the ingredients by three-fifths, and the labor falls from 15 minutes a cup to about 2. The year is in cheese making business plan.

Pasteurized, and the plan

Fresh cheese sold to the public is made from pasteurized milk in a licensed plant; cheese from raw milk has to be aged instead. The vat's time and temperature, and the cooler's, are the plant's critical control points, in cheese HACCP plan.

Get the calculator

Download the cheese scaling calculator. Two sheets: scale the recipe, where you type each ingredient's percentage and cost a pound and the raw mix you want, and each ingredient's weight for the run fills in, with the vat runs, what comes out after the whey share, the cups it fills and the cost of each cup; and weigh the loss, where what went in and came out over a few batches gives your average whey share. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

Fresh goat cheese, curds and an aged tomme, vats three days a week, milk from two herds, and spring milk that yields more than August's. A sheet can say how much culture a vat needs, but not what this month's yield really is, or which herd's milk went into which cup.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps the recipe by weight, takes each batch's ingredients off stock and checks its yield.

The recipe in the units you use. A recipe holds each ingredient by weight, with milk bought by the bulk tank and used by the pound, and the cost of every cup comes from what you paid. "What could I make right now" says how many runs the milk, culture and rennet on the shelf allow.

Each run a batch. A run takes its ingredients off stock, records the lots of milk it used, and gets a lot of its own for the cups, with how much came out good, how much was rejected and the labor minutes.

Yield checked from history. From your own batch history, TaroStack says whether a recipe yields what it claims and which ingredient's quantity is off, so a whey share that creeps up shows in the numbers. A tank of milk rejected at receiving is an adjustment with its reason, spoiled, and shows in the waste report.

Recipes, batches, lots and yield are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

How much cheese do you get from a gallon of milk?

In the example, about 1.5 pounds of fresh goat cheese; aged cheese yields a little under a pound a gallon.

How do you make cheese in large batches?

Pasteurize the milk in a vat, culture and set it, drain the curd, and salt and portion it by weight, weighing what comes out every run.

Why does my cheese yield change through the year?

Milk changes: spring and fall milk often carries more fat and protein than midsummer's, so the same vat makes more cheese.

How much does it cost to make cheese in bulk?

In the example, $2.29 a 4-ounce cup from a 50-gallon vat, against $8.61 in a kitchen batch.