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Brick cheese

A Wisconsin brick cheese whose caramelised, lacy edge against a hot steel pan defines Detroit-style pizza's signature crust.

Milk
Cow's milk
Moisture
moderate
Fat
moderate
Stretch
moderate
Browning
high
Oil release
moderate
Salt
moderate
Use timing
pre bake
Heat tolerance
moderate
Burn risk
moderate

Melt behaviour

Melts to a distinctive lacy, caramelised edge when placed against a very hot pan surface

Central to Detroit-style pizza's caramelised cheese edge, which forms from cheese placed edge-to-edge against a hot steel pan — a genuine steel Detroit pan is required to reproduce this at home, since a standard sheet pan won't hold enough heat at the edge

Storage and preparation

Placed to the edges of the pan deliberately, unlike most cheeses which are kept away from the rim

Common problems

  • Kept away from the pan's edge like a typical cheese, it never develops the caramelised lace Detroit-style pizza depends on
  • Its moderate burn risk means the edge can tip from caramelised to actually burnt if the bake runs even slightly long

Substitutions

  • a blend of low-moisture mozzarella and Muenster approximates the effect where true brick cheese is unavailable

Styles using this cheese

  • Detroit-style pizzaDefiningWell established

    Placed edge-to-edge against the hot steel pan, its melt caramelises into the style's signature lacy, crisp edge.

Compare

Mozzarella vs brick cheese

Blends featuring this cheese

Governed cheese blends (Mega Sprint 6) name the role each cheese plays rather than declaring one universal best combination — see each blend’s compromise before assuming it fits every context.

  • Detroit brick-and-mozzarella pan blend

    Role here: Browning cheese (the remainder, placed specifically at the pan's edges)

    Mozzarella covers the interior for even melt while brick cheese is deliberately placed at the pan's edges to form Detroit-style pizza's signature caramelised lace.

    Compromise: Using a mozzarella-majority blend rather than all brick cheese increases availability (brick cheese is a regional Wisconsin/Great Lakes product) but sacrifices some of brick's distinctive tang across the interior of the pizza, where mozzarella's much milder flavour dominates instead.

Evidence

Strongly supported

Brick cheese placed at the pan's edges to produce a caramelised, lacy crust is the documented defining trait of Detroit-style pizza.

  • Detroit Free Press — coverage of Buddy's Pizza and Detroit-style origin — Detroit Free Press

History and cultural context

A Wisconsin cheese developed in the 1870s by a Swiss immigrant cheesemaker, named for the bricks used to press it. Its adoption by Detroit pizza is a mid-20th-century regional accident of supply rather than a culinary tradition.

Traditional regions: Wisconsin, Michigan, Upper Midwest

Produced and distributed largely within the United States, and stocked mainly where Detroit-style pizza has a following.

Very limited. Detroit-style pizza has spread internationally far faster than its cheese has, which is why the substitution question is one of the most-asked in the style.

The cheese travelled from Swiss-American cheesemaking into Italian-American pizza within one state — an internal, regional transfer rather than an international one.

Where it is actually used

  • Detroit and the Upper MidwestDefiningTraditional practiceDriven by local availability

    The caramelised cheese edge it forms against a hot steel pan is a defining characteristic of the style, not a garnish.

    Strongly supported
  • Outside North AmericaGenerally absentDriven by local availability

    Rarely available even from specialist cheesemongers, which is why blends standing in for it are the practical norm abroad.

    Generally accepted

What it is called elsewhere

  • Brick cheese — English (US)

Commonly repeated, and not supported

  • That any cheese will produce the Detroit frico. Fresh mozzarella steams rather than fries and forms no edge at all.
Generally accepted
  • Detroit Free Press — coverage of Buddy's Pizza and Detroit-style origin — Detroit Free Press
  • Slice (pizza history and culture writing) — Slice / First We Feast

If you cannot get it

A low-moisture mozzarella and mild cheddar blend, or a young Monterey Jack or Gouda, reproduces the frico edge that matters most.