How Parmesan Cheese Is Made

So you're sitting in a restaurant, maybe you order the pasta and your waiter says "Would you like some parmesan with that?" You say "yes" and take an egregious mound full, but guess what? That's not real parmesan! The authentic version is called Parmigiano Reggiano. For over a thousand years it's been required by law that it be made only in certain parts of Italy in a very specific way, anything else out there that you see is just an imitation. But I've always had a deep desire to know the secret of how it's made, and even make a wheel myself. So I've arrived in the Italian countryside to work with Italy's greatest cheese maker and they promised me if I can do what they do daily they'll let me taste the rarest cheese on planet Earth worth $70,000 a wheel! And no, it isn't normal Parmesan. And that journey starts right here on the cow farm at 4:00 in the morning at one of the most authentic Parmigiano Reggiano factories in all of Italy Malandrone. but I'm not doing this alone we have chef and culinary adventurer Mr z here to help guide me through this and translate along the way i'm going to get down and dirty creating my own wheel from start to finish and this is where it comes from we're about to see these magical cows are you ready for their others yeah it's 4 in the morning i'm standing here waiting for the cows let's go one of them is starting already so they're disinfecting the other making sure there are no bacterias everything is clean crazy i mean it's like spraying some of them have started without being touched we've all been there so go for it disinfect the other i'm scared and then you have to pull them how do I do it like like this three fingers and pull down now you have experience in that it's fine very good success after disinfecting it was time to put the Can't believe I'm saying this but uh the milking machine on Yeah excellent oh oh no okay all right it's harder than I thought it would be how does it feel it's kind of like a game the milking game parmesan making is such a delicate process if you think about it you take the milk you end up with a whole wheel of cheese i don't think it's that simple i think there's probably a few other steps right well we'll find out we'll find out soon but now it's time for the cows to head back home so we could see where this milk was stored all the,800 liters of milk extracted this morning from 120 cows coming straight here 37° straight from the others you want to go check it out this is a very safe ladder as well yeah this ladder looks very OSHA safe oh wow it smells amazing i I want to drink it i might you know the cows weren't the only animal friends lurking around this farm there's a cat it's a good thing Kate isn't here kate would be like "Oh we gonna take the cat home put it on the plane." No no we have two all right cute cat we're on our mission to make the highest the greatest cheese and surprisingly the rarest Parmesan Rajano in the world comes from only three ingredients first whole milk we got from the cows which contains the skim milk and the natural starter known as the way and then second salt and third renet which turns the liquid cheese solid we'll explain that later though it's a miracle that only three ingredients can make the number one cheese in the world but as beautiful as that sounds there's a battle raging in this room every day between good and bad bacteria if good bacteria wins we get unparalleled flavor and consistency but if the bad bacteria wins the entire process falls apart to a complete failure only if done properly can we create a wheel of the world's best cheese so I will do my best to not this up while our 1,800 L of raw milk was being collected we moved to the dairy and as soon as I stepped inside my mind was blown our first ingredient milk this is the leftover milk that sat out overnight the fat rises forming a layer of the fattiest creamiest of cream wow insane the way it clings to your finger is unbelievable can you smell it oh smells unbelievable oh incredible before we make the cheese though we need to get you undressed and dressed up i'll just stay undressed butt naked apron as long as your bacterias are good yeah oh they're good they're real good if I was going to work alongside a master cheese maker feel like I'm going to have to look the part joshua please meet Paulo the head cheese maker and his son Andrea paulo's been making cheese since he was 15 years old he's the pinnacle of this house of the gods are you ready on to my first test i unccorked the hole and let the milk flow we need to separate the aged milk from the cream we have to time this perfectly to not lose a single drop of the liquid gold that is the cream and as soon as it gets thicker we're going to go and close it it's almost a little bit stressful these vats are so big that if they don't time this right they lose out on some of the most crucial parts of the cheese making process so step by step you see they slowly close the top so they're coaxing the milk out of this basically as much as possible the fact that it's just two people at 5:00 in the morning father and son walking in by hand extracting this this is like a lost art almost it is a lost art so this now is cream it's not milk anymore i want to put it on the ground and then what was full of milk and cream is just cream now the next steps are going to be super delicate you see the that wooden thing they're going to use that to scrape because they don't want to lose even one ml of this liquid gold so this is the first pull of the heavy cream so we're going to pull this yeah and then I I'll scrape oh yeah wow have you ever seen so much cream in your life uh in my bedroom so Paulo put me to work scraping every last drop of cream which seemed easy enough but so in the time that it took me to finish my two they've done two four six of them so triple the amount of work that I did but uh you know it's my first time i I did okay now what happening is that we're waiting for the milk from the farm the ones that you just And then we're going to have to mix 50% of that milk with the skimmed milk and then we're going to use a little bit of the whey a little bit of renet and then we're going to start cooking it all the protein of milk we're going to have to break them to grain particles in this way we can achieve the perfect cheese can you hear oh the tractor yeah it's our milk let's go component 2 has arrived it is now time to add to the mix this milk is going to go into the bath they don't want to use pumps because as soon as you use pumps you risk to damage the integrity of the milk so they use gravity to transport the milk into the barrel 50% of the skimmed milk and 50% of the fat milk so he's literally preparing the starter splitting it evenly but as you can see there is no measuring scale everything is made by hand made by eye so we're measuring it at this stage waiting for it to get to that line and now we add the starter very heavy now we heat it up they're bringing it out to 33 35° for the first stage they're heating it and then he's mixing renet to then separate it obviously all this liquid isn't going to suddenly become cheese but what's separated from it will be the cheese the separation part is what's called coagulation the renet is the coagulant despite using a thermometer the cheese maker still needs to dip his hand in the boiling hot milk to feel the consistency of the curds why because milk changes every day and only he does it for every single parmesan that comes out of this production unbelievable so you added the renet 1 minute of mixing 10 minutes is going to be coagulated and then we start breaking it with the spino this tool over here so it was time once again to watch the master at work look at what he's doing you have to be delicate and precise in the movement wow and you know I had to give it a try which was much harder than it looks oh my god you're strong i want to be clear the viscosity of this liquid like I I would say I'm at like 60% power pushing down i wouldn't with this dude very delicate process here once that coaculated milk is broken up into grain-like pieces they then crank the heat up to 55° C to begin removing some of the water from the curd but now all the heavy particles are going to fall down to the bottom of the barrel gonna have to let it sleep let it rest for at least 1 hour but in the meantime we can have some breakfast thank god let's do that but breakfast didn't last long because after an hour it was time to pull out these huge blocks we need to lift the cheese oh lift the cheese it's going to be heavy sir you ready if this guy is struggling there's noing way I'm going to Come on oh my come on come on come on jesus Christ i mean look at this oh come on come on there she is remove remove remove remove josh josh josh come come come oh wow oh you have to shape it yes like that shape shape shape shape shape shape we have to tie it up this up i I don't know how here i don't want to be Yeah makes me laugh so much so it's already kind of in the shape a little bit it's funny i wasn't expecting it to already be in such a round shape but the basin of these copper vats kind of already pre-shapes it a little bit it's pretty amazing and then they're going to cut these in half as well don't make a hole in the net i'm trying not to i'm so scared these are two Parmesan wheels so it's kind of like a perfect life cycle right beginning of the day they do all this stuff and by the time they're done they're left over with this sort of like whey starter liquid that's then going to sit overnight and they're going to use it again the next day to use as a starter or the mother culture if you will just so you know how deep this is that's my full arm length if I were in this that would be well above my head now once the bats have been drained a bit it's time to take the cheese out and put them into their molds very good start shaping it pull it up pull pull pull pull she's a little big cover and tuck it in like a baby very good quite the process my god and finally we have arrived to day zero the start of our parmesano wheel somehow when you think of age cheese the aging process doesn't even technically begin until around day 20 on day zero the wheels are flipped multiple times and that evening they get branded with the iconic dotted parmesan reaniano inscription you see here but there's more excitement to come before it's officially certified as genuine Parmesan Reiano it almost smells like fresh like yogurt and this is the ID card this tells you which cow came from which heater who made it what date what time here is a room where they age up to 2 days to complete the drying process to make sure there's no water left okay so it's got some discoloration now it's a little bit more yellow and not so white this is not parmyo yet because the branding will happen here when is authorized by the consortium so when the consortium comes when the wheel is ready 12 months after they be like this is okay and they will stamp it for you wow otherwise you can't sell it as paragano wow you can literally commit an entire year of aging before you even get to decide if it's worthy of the powerful name of Parmesano Reiano the flavor doesn't even begin until this next step a giant saltwater bath to brine in which will also help draw out some of that moisture we're here surrounded by parmesans that are just sitting in here for 17 days both the seasoning of it is happening here but also the curing and it's basically cleaning off the exterior so it creates a crust and uh can be aged for years after it's bath it gets a day in the steam room to further dry out which I'm a little confused about cuz there's steam in there but you know what this is their stuff not mine only then does it move to a place I have only seen in the depths of my dreams possibly wet ones welcome to the house of the gods oh my god wow holy wow so it's aging as we go the smell in here is unbelievable you're getting like blue cheese toffee uh brown butter so many different scents combined it's unbelievable so all of these wheels you'll notice something different colors different ages but there's one wall it's a little different this one is significantly darker they kept this wall to showcase you the rarest and most expensive parmyo wall of all Romania i really appreciate that you came all the way down here and you understood from the cow down to the cheese the process and I feel like we should have him taste a little bite oh you deserve it yes i'm ready let's do it but maybe I shouldn't be cheering so soon you see Mr z apparently has a challenge for me but he won't say what it is until I first taste a 2-year age parmesano do you remember how many months does he have to be parmesano 12 12 great can you reckon how many months this is it's definitely more than 12 26 months which usually is what Italians love to eat we're going to cut a little piece to taste you can smell the butter i smell it and I immediately am transported back into that room in there buttery toffee like break it and smell again oh it comes right out wow there's some crunches do you feel the little crunches i'm tasting it completely different than I ever have before it smells like like a baby in a way like milk i think you're high off the high off the cheese right now a little bit a little bit having said this I want to give you another challenge if you pass the challenge I'm going to give you a 20-year-old cheese the rarest cheese in the world one wheel ever opened in the history of humankind the Minnelli family they are giving us an opportunity to try history but remember you have to pass this test first and it's not going to be an easy test okay come with me now if I can complete his mystery challenge I'll finally get to taste the rarest cheese in the world and be able to truly say if it is the greatest cheese on earth we are opening a wheel we're opening a wheel no way really have you ever opened a Parmesan wheel uh no 60 months of age which is 5 years 5 years very good majority of Italian population has never tried a 5-year Parmesan cheese despite feeling like a kid in the candy store I was nervous even more nervous that I'm doing it in front of two legends you have to find the perfect half otherwise this will in the bin okay good luck oh hell now it's time for me to cut a 5yearaged Parmesano wheel and even with all these specialized tools this was hard so step one you cut a straight line around the entire length of the wheel with a sharp hookshaped knife it looks easier than it is yeah it's very hard step two using these specialized stabby knives you're going to jab straight into that line now you're going to hear Mr z yell "Oh," or wiggle oil a little bit oil i'm going to find you O Sheila and then eventually something happens and by eventually I mean this process took me 25 minutes which is probably longer than it should have taken anybody how long does it take you to open one 2 minutes but after all that hard work yeah oh sh I finally passed the test yes oh and now try straight from the wheel beautiful look at this oh the smell smell how completely different this completely different there's another cheese there's still a distant memory of the room but it's a little farther away and now level two the 5-year aged Parmesano one step closer to the 20-year wo joshua it's too close holy 25 minutes what do you think beyond worth it i didn't think that Parmesano could taste like this you can taste every little note the toffee the sweetness it's more sweet i thought it would be less sweet now the umami is really present you're still getting the flavor and the scent from the room but it's changed in a big way unbelievable so rich and nutty too this is the greatest parmesano I've ever tasted in my entire life by far it's about to get better that's impossible the gentleman over here thought that this was not enough for award for the effort they wanted to bless us as you know with the most exclusive hardest to get we get to try the 20 years old Parmyo Reano from Malandron we're looking at $70,000 but it's not about the cost it's about the time the history the passion the love wow look at this it's like a a contraband people in this region pray for this oh my god the sweetness you can smell now too before it's not so much but now you can really smell it it's like the Holy Sacrament the texture is completely different than what I expected so I've had cheeses from all over the world i've cooked with three Michelin starred chefs i've tried the best of the best but this by far is the rarest most expensive most tailored cheese I think in human existence cheers holy i had a very small bite oh my god oh my god every single part of your mouth speaking to you now the floral notes the fruit notes are so much like unbelievable it's much drier texture- wise less creamy but more of like a chew like a nice like firm chew the flavor is so explosive so floral you're getting that sweetness and the sweetness is so much more powerful i'm thinking about the whole journey that we've gone through waking up at 2 in the morning going and milking the cows washing the bins getting the cream out cooking the milk separating it i'm physically and emotionally exhausted and even then the work is not done the work doesn't stop there it continues in its slumber in this beautiful church of cheese to age for 12 months right which already it becomes an incredible product this by far is a perfect example of what I'm about to say which is does time make a difference and it absolutely does it's something that we've forgotten about in today's culture this is not only a testament of time but this is the greatest cheese on planet Earth and now come with us so you remember that you cooked in the pot number five yes these are the two number five cheeses you'll sign them oh really the signature will stay forever wow in 12 months we'll see these wheels just keep watching every single day for the next 12 months thank you so much