Parmesan Style Cheese at Home
This cheese is my daughter Reata’s favorite. This post will teach you how to make a Parmesan style cheese at home with raw cow’s milk and a few other simple ingredients.
Let me tell you a little story about Parmesan style cheese.
Parmesan is traditionally a skim milk cheese — and when I first learned that, I thought, perfect! I ran a big batch of raw milk through the separator, saved the cream to make butter, and used the 100% skim to make my very first Parm. I waited and waited... the cheese looked absolutely beautiful. Finally the day came to crack it open. Except "crack" is putting it lightly — I had to use every ounce of strength I had to persuade a knife through it. And then? Wah wah wah (as my three-year-old would say). It was like chewing on a car tire. Awful. What a disappointment.
But here's the good news — I learned my lesson so you don't have to. The biggest takeaway? Don't use 100% skim milk. It will be as hard as a rock and taste like rubber. You need at least a little fat in there.
These days, I hand-skim my jars down to about a 1" cream line and make a lovely Parmesan style cheese from that. It has the right texture, the right flavor, and it actually cuts without a battle. And if you're wondering what to do with all that leftover cream — try my super simple ice cream recipe. My family is absolutely obsessed with it!
How to Make Parmesan Style Cheese at Home
Here's the quick version: you'll warm your raw milk, add your culture and rennet, cut the curds, then spend some quality time stirring while slowly heating to reach your target temperature. From there you'll rest the curds, then remove the whey, hoop your curds, press, brine, and then the hardest part — wait. Parmesan style cheese needs anywhere from 4 to 18 months to develop that deep, nutty flavor we all love. But trust me, it is so worth it.
Side note: we have cut into a wheel of this cheese after 3 months and it is still delicious. There isn’t a lot of patience around our household!
Did you know? Moisture is removed from cheese primarily through stirring, not pressing. The more you stir, the drier your final cheese will be.
This cheese is pretty simple to make — it just takes a lot of stirring. Parmesan is a drier cheese, and the way you dry those curds out isn't by pressing (though there's plenty of that too) — it's by stirring.
So get comfortable, put on a good podcast, and get ready to stir your heart out. It's worth every minute.
Once your cheese is finished, don't throw out that whey! First, use it to make a batch of Ricotta— and then take the leftover whey from that and turn it into whey caramel. Waste nothing, friends. Unless you are worn out and the kids are driving you crazy… then it’s A-Okay to feed it to the pigs!
FAQs:
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You could use whole milk, but getting the right texture and flavor will be tricky. I really do recommend skimming down to that 1" cream line for best results. It's that sweet spot between too rich and too lean.
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No clabber? No problem! You can use plain yogurt instead. Parmesan is a thermophilic cheese, and since yogurt contains thermophilic bacteria, it works beautifully as a culture. I use clabber because it's usually what I have on hand straight from the farm, but yogurt is a totally reliable substitute.
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I keep all of my cheeses in my cool basement. If you don’t have a basement, you can keep this cheese in the fridge. Since a fridge is not high humidity, I would vacuum seal the cheese first. If you don’t use much cheese at a time, you can cut it into wedges after it dries and vacuum seal the individual wedges.
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Parmesan Style Cheese
My family loves this cheese. It is straightforward to make at home and is a great option for when you have lower fat milk (calf sharing).
Ingredients
- 4 gallons partly skimmed raw milk (skimmed to a 1" cream line)
- 160ml clabber or ½ tsp thermophilic freeze-dried culture
- ¾ tsp rennet
- Heavy (saturated) brine
Instructions
- Culture the milk. Heat your milk to 88–90°F. If using clabber, stir it in and move on to the next step. If using a freeze-dried culture, sprinkle it over the surface of the milk and let it hydrate for 5 minutes before stirring in.
- Add rennet. Dilute the rennet in ½ cup of non-chlorinated water, then add it to the milk. Stir using an up-and-down motion for 1 minute. Cover the pot and let it rest until you achieve a clean break — aim for 20–30 minutes, but check every 10 minutes until you get there. (I usually hit a clean break around 40 minutes with raw milk — don't worry if it takes a bit longer!)
- Cut the curds. Once you have a clean break, use a whisk to slowly cut the curd into ¼" cubes over the course of 10 minutes.
- First stir. Stir gently for 10–15 minutes without changing the temperature.
- Cook the curds — stage one. Continue stirring gently while slowly raising the temperature to 108°F over 30 minutes. Hold at this temperature and stir for an additional 5 minutes.
- Cook the curds — stage two. Continue stirring while slowly raising the temperature to 124–128°F over another 30 minutes.
- Settle and drain. Let the curds settle for 5 minutes, then drain off as much whey as possible. (Save that whey — Ricotta is next!)
- Press the cheese. Transfer your curds into a cloth-lined mold. Press with enough weight to see clear whey slowly draining out. After 15 minutes, remove from the press, flip, redress, and press again with more weight. The draining whey should be mostly clear — if it looks opaque or milky, ease up on the pressure.
- Continue pressing. After 30 minutes, flip, redress, and increase the weight again. Very little whey should be draining at this point. Continue increasing weight as needed to close the rind. Press for a total of 6–12 hours.
- Brine. Unwrap your cheese and weigh it. Place it in a heavy saturated brine for 12 hours per pound, flipping halfway through and salting the exposed side.
- Dry and age. Remove from the brine and allow to air dry, flipping a couple of times per day until the rind is dry. Then you have two options:
- Vacuum seal and continue aging for 4–18 months in your refrigerator or a cool spot about 50℉.
- Natural aging in a space around 55°F and 80% humidity. Turn daily for the first month, then weekly after that.
Notes
To make a heavy brine: Mix 1 gallon of water with 2.5 lbs of salt (a lot I know, but you can reuse your brines!) + 1 tbsp calcium chloride if you have it + 1 tsp vinegar. Make sure it is cool, not hot before adding your cheese.
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