Why not!
Why Tap a Wheel of Cheese?
21–30 of 166 posts
Re: Why Tap a Wheel of Cheese?
#22Just like people sometimes question the human element in judging sports, I wonder if there are cheesemakers who think these guys are simply against them or favorable to their neighbors. One thing I've also wondered about this process. When I buy Parmigiano Reggiano, it's just sold as "Parmigiano Reggiano". There's no discernable branding beyond that (compared to the Pecorino Romano I buy, which has "Locatelli" plaste…
If you buy it vacuum-sealed from a shop, the packaging usually has additional branding from the producer.
Not a "favorite dairy", but if it's convenient to do so, I usually look for the "vacche rosse" type, which is more expensive but also noticeably different (and better). Of course it would be a waste to grate it over pasta; better to eat it on its own.
Re: Why Tap a Wheel of Cheese?
#23I am glad that this continues to be done by hand, and expect, based on Italian attitudes towards food and tradition, that it will continue being done by hand for another hundred years. It is interesting how important it seems to us that jobs like this remain done in the traditional way. For all their expertise, I am sure a technical solution would also easily be able to detect what they are looking for: voids within…
- "For all their expertise, I am sure a technical solution would also easily be able to detect what they are looking for: voids within the cheese, or lack of uniform density..." Out of pure curiosity, how would an industrial process engineer approach this problem, de novo?
Just doing the same thing they do, basically. Have a tiny transducer "hit" the cheese and listen for echo back.
Now, I don't think ultrasound would work (it's a harder cheese than Swiss cheese), also the mechanical interface would be a complication (you can't gel the cheese). CT would work but be expensive
But tiny percussions and analysis of echo/transmission delays would work in principle
Re: Why Tap a Wheel of Cheese?
#24I am glad that this continues to be done by hand, and expect, based on Italian attitudes towards food and tradition, that it will continue being done by hand for another hundred years. It is interesting how important it seems to us that jobs like this remain done in the traditional way. For all their expertise, I am sure a technical solution would also easily be able to detect what they are looking for: voids within…
- "For all their expertise, I am sure a technical solution would also easily be able to detect what they are looking for: voids within the cheese, or lack of uniform density..." Out of pure curiosity, how would an industrial process engineer approach this problem, de novo?
A sonogram… it doesn’t even need to be AI
Re: Why Tap a Wheel of Cheese?
#25I am glad that this continues to be done by hand, and expect, based on Italian attitudes towards food and tradition, that it will continue being done by hand for another hundred years. It is interesting how important it seems to us that jobs like this remain done in the traditional way. For all their expertise, I am sure a technical solution would also easily be able to detect what they are looking for: voids within…
- "For all their expertise, I am sure a technical solution would also easily be able to detect what they are looking for: voids within the cheese, or lack of uniform density..." Out of pure curiosity, how would an industrial process engineer approach this problem, de novo?
Other commenters have given what's probably the right answer, but in the spirit of exploration, I wonder about electrical impedance tomography. I'd think a salty cheese would be a pretty good medium to pass electricity through, and since the wheels are very uniform in shape, you could make a chuck that held electrodes in contact with the wheel. We don't really need precise information about the shape and location of the voids, we're not going to do surgery on the cheese, so the coarseness of EIT might not be an issue.
Re: Why Tap a Wheel of Cheese?
#26I am glad that this continues to be done by hand, and expect, based on Italian attitudes towards food and tradition, that it will continue being done by hand for another hundred years. It is interesting how important it seems to us that jobs like this remain done in the traditional way. For all their expertise, I am sure a technical solution would also easily be able to detect what they are looking for: voids within…
>I am glad that this continues to be done by hand, and expect, based on Italian attitudes towards food and tradition, that it will continue being done by hand for another hundred years.
It has been fun watching Starbucks' various attempts at cracking into the Italian market.
Re: Why Tap a Wheel of Cheese?
#27I saw a How it's Made episode about cheeses like this the other day. They mix the ingredients in a giant electric mixer - but dump them in by hand. The inspection is still done by ear with a hammer - but when then need to flip the wheels over every few weeks they have a robot grabber thing do it.
Obviously, there's some balance in technology that is about right, but where do you draw the line? Because this could absolutely be done fully by hand or fully autonomously.
The episode after that showed a machine to milk cows which was fully automated with no human involvement at all!
Re: Why Tap a Wheel of Cheese?
#28I am glad that this continues to be done by hand, and expect, based on Italian attitudes towards food and tradition, that it will continue being done by hand for another hundred years. It is interesting how important it seems to us that jobs like this remain done in the traditional way. For all their expertise, I am sure a technical solution would also easily be able to detect what they are looking for: voids within…
based on Italian attitudes towards food and tradition, that it will continue being done by hand for another hundred years.
I'm unfamiliar with the regs on this, but can the duties of the battitore be written into the standard for the cheese?
Re: Why Tap a Wheel of Cheese?
#29There was a time when I was consuming a lot of industrial cheese. I developed a rash on my legs... One day I realized the rash was certainly being caused by my cheap cheese habit. I'm certain it was related to the "vegetarian enzymes" used as an industrial substitute for the traditional animal rennet. I stopped buying the cheap cheese, and my rash went away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennet
Contaminants are a common problem in industrial food manufacturing: citric acid (fungal contaminants), vitamin C (heavy metals), and "enzymes" (?).
I'm glad Italians insist their cheeses be made following the traditional methods.
Re: Why Tap a Wheel of Cheese?
#30Will an AI be able to do this too? Probably. Hey! I don't think it's a good idea. But if it's cheap and effective, guess how long it will take?
It's been possible to automate this job away for decades, with no AI necessary. You could image these cheese wheels with ultrasound or X-rays and establish thresholds for the size of voids which are tolerable. This must be a concern wherever parts are cast, so surely there are off the shelf solutions. Presumably this isn't news to the relevant parties and they value having human battitores over the savings.
The 'savings' could also take an unreasonably long time to realize. The capital outlay is not small (the scanning machines, their maintenance, still need humans to categorize the cheeses) and artisanal cheese probably isn't all that high-volume a business nor is it particularly bound by precision and tight tolerances - it can matter a lot that some doodad that goes into a machine is defect free, less so with a hunk of cheese.