Glossary · Milling and pressing
Cheese
Also written cider cheese, the build. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
The stack of pomace built up in a traditional press: alternating layers of pomace wrapped in cloth, or bound with straw, forming a squat block that juice runs out of under pressure.
- Subject
- Milling and pressing
- Also written
- cider cheese, the build
In more detail
The name has nothing to do with dairying beyond the shape — a cheese is a round, layered block. The layering exists because pomace has no structure of its own: a deep single mass of pulp seals and stops draining, whereas thin layers separated by cloth give the juice a short path to a free face.
In straw-built cheeses, still used in a few places into the twentieth century, long straw was laid crosswise and folded in to contain each layer. Rack and cloth replaced straw because it is faster to build, easier to clean and does not flavour the juice.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Production
Rack-and-cloth pressing
Building pomace into thin cloth-wrapped layers separated by racks, so that juice has a short path out and the stack can carry the pressure needed to force it.
Production
Traditional screw pressing
The wooden farm press in which one or two hand-turned screws drive a follower down onto a built cheese of pomace, tightened by degrees over hours.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Milling and pressing
Rack and cloth
The standard traditional pressing method: pomace is wrapped in a square cloth to form a parcel, a slatted rack is laid on top, and the layers are stacked into a cheese and pressed.
Milling and pressing
Hair
A coarse cloth of horsehair, and later of woven synthetic fibre, used to wrap pomace in a press. The word survives as the trade name for press cloths regardless of what they are now made from.
Milling and pressing
Press cloth
The woven sheet in which a layer of pomace is folded before pressing. Mesh size trades juice clarity against pressing speed, and cleanliness of cloths is a principal control on spoilage organisms in the press house.
Milling and pressing
Pomace
Milled fruit — flesh, skin, pips and stalk fragments — before pressing, and the spent solids left in the press afterwards. Both senses are in everyday use and context distinguishes them.
Milling and pressing
Pressing yield
The proportion of fruit weight recovered as juice, usually expressed as litres per tonne or as a percentage. It depends on the fruit, the mill setting, the press type and the pressure profile.
Where to go next
- Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
- Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
- Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
Hereford Museum of Cider collections and interpretation
Hereford Cider Museum Trust · museum · retrieved 2026-08-24
Somerset Rural Life Museum — cider collections
South West Heritage Trust · museum · retrieved 2026-08-24
Vinetum Britannicum, or a Treatise of Cider
John Worlidge · historical source · passage verified 2026-08-24 · covers 1676
Identified on 2026-08-24 from the 1678 edition held by the Internet Archive. John Worlidge, active 1669–1698; the work ran to further editions including 1691, so a citation to it should say which. The full title is broader than the short one CiderHQ uses and matters for what the book can be cited for: it covers other fruit wines and drinks alongside cider, so it is evidence about seventeenth-century English fruit fermentation generally rather than about cider alone.