This Wiki Article disscussee weigh scales which are commonly used in several places during cheese making. This article is divided into the following sections:
Large commercial cheesemakers working with 1000 gallon vats of milk often use prepackaged containers of cheese making additives such as starter cultures, aroma and flavour cultures such as lipase, salt, or flavourings such as cumin seeds. However these packages are not normally commercially available in small enough sizes for small and artisan cheese makers.
Often these small containers need to be measured, often by volume which for powders is highly dependent on loose or tight packing and for very small amounts such as 1/16 of a teaspoon can often be error prone. Thus some cheese makers choose to measure these by weight rather than volume.
For these small weights, for accuracy it is recommended that a small low cost high resolution 0.1 gram or 0.01 gram scale is used, and as a container for small volumes a small waxed paper cupcake container be used.
Cheeses are commonly weighed at different stages of production for quality control points. These are dependent on the type of cheese being made, but example weigh points are after molding and pressing, after brining, after air drying, after natural rind aging and before vacuum bag or wax sealing, and before sale or consumption.
For weighing cheeses, depending on their size (wide and thin vs narrow and tall) and weight, standard kitchen or commercial scales are appropriate as long as they can be hygienically cleaned. For commercial cheese production, contact local authorities for regulations.
Some cheese makers use scales (even bathroom type scales) placed between a cheese and a press (or below for stability) to measure and calibrate their cheese press.