How is it made?

It is very natural to say that this cheese is made with 3 ingredients only: milk, rennet and salt. No additives, no preservatives.

Parmigiano Reggiano is an hard cheese made from raw cow's milk.
The milk is collected in the evening and it rest until next morning in stainless steel containers.

During the night takes place a partially skimming by a natural surface skimming: the fat part of the milk ("panna") spontaneously rises to the surface, separating from the whey, and removed by cheesemakers.
In the morning milk is poured into copper vats and whole milk from the morning milking is added.

It takes about 550 litres of milk to produce a wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano

CURD

The addition of whey starter (derived from the previous day processing), in a natural way, bring about lactic acid fermentation.

HEATING: Then the milk is heated until 36° C and in that phase, the calf rennet is added; in about 10 minutes milk coagulation takes place, forming the curd ("cagliata"=curd). The cheesemakers broken down the curd into very little granules using "spino", a traditional tool.

COOKING

The temperature is raised and the milk is cooked bringing the temperature no more than 55 ° C: during this cooking, the granules of cheese dry out and expel the whey, then go to the bottom of copper vat to form a single mass of about 100 kgs.

MOULDS

After about fifty minutes the cheesemaker removes the cheese mass and cut it into two parts; then cheese is wrapped in the typical linen cloth and placed a mould which will give it its final shape.