Dry matter
What is left of a cheese if all its water is taken away: fat, protein, salt and minerals.
Also: total solids, extrait sec
Dry matter is a measure of everything in a cheese except water. A fresh cheese such as cottage cheese or chhena may be eighty per cent water and only twenty per cent dry matter, while Parmigiano Reggiano is around seventy per cent dry matter. Because water content changes as a cheese ages and dries, labels give fat as a share of dry matter rather than of total weight, so the figure stays steady from young to old. Cheesemakers and graders use dry matter to define styles: soft, semi-hard and hard cheeses are partly separated by how much water they hold in proportion to their solids. Higher dry matter generally means firmer texture and longer keeping.