Why American Cheese Melts Better Than Real Cheese

Kate Yoshida of MinuteFood explained why the chemical composition of processed cheese foods such as American cheese helps it melt better than that of real cheese, particularly hard and aged versions, which clump when heated.

As the cheese's temperature increases, its molecules startmoving around more, and some of the intermolecular orces holding its proteins together weaken andbreak, all of which begins to loosen up thenetwork, softening the cheese. Eventually, things get loosey-goosey enough that the cheese can ooze, drip, and flow. At least, that's the goal...but sometimes, you end up with something way less appetizing.

While not a traditional cheese, American cheese is made up of a combination of young colby and cheddar that's combined with additional moisture and fats. It also contains sodium citrate, which weakens the binding proteins enough to make it melt smoothly.

When these salts, most often sodium citrate, are added to cheese, some ofthe calcium that glues the proteins togethergets replaced with sodium a less-effectiveglue, increasing the flexibility of the network even further.

In fact, sodium citrate can be added to other real cheeses to break the protein bindings for a similarly smooth melt.

If you ARE anti-process cheese, or want something more interesting than itsadmittedly underwhelming flavor, you can...usesodium citrate, which you can easily getonline, to make almost any cheese, likethis well-aged extra sharp cheddar, into areally good melter.