Cheese, glorious cheese. One of my favourite things to eat, as I’m sure I have mentioned is cheese. Cooking with it is not something which I have done much of, other than numerous cheesecakes, but that might be simply be because you could serve me a plate I good quality cheese on its own and I would give it a rave review immediately.
Anyway, what I’m getting around to telling you is that I made cheese. Here at the school you get all sorts of opportunities outside of class time and making cheese is one of them. Now you’ll have to excuse me, I will never be a cheese maker, and so my explanation of the process is going to be in terms as far removed from the technically correct as possible.
Walking into the dairy, we were presented with a vat of curds and whey, the curd of which had set into quite a solid form on the top. From here step one was to cut the curd. This is simply done with by running a wire frame of sorts through it. The curd was then tested for a certain firmness which it must reach before proceeding. Then it was all hands on deck once we had been given the go ahead. Hands in to the vat we had to break up the curd and during the process whey was extracted (20L) and the temperature was brought up to requirements. Once reached, all the curd is removed and put into moulds, where they are then weighed down with weights for the purpose of compressing them. After fifteen minutes, they are then turned, having taken shape. Literally this means that they are taken out of the mould, turned upside down and put back in. This is done again after half an hour and then an hour that evening. From the second day on the cheese is turned once daily. However on the morning of the second day, the cheese is weighed and salted, an so 2% of the cheese weight is added in salt. The daily cheese turning continues for two weeks, after which the cheese can be left to sit and gather its natural mould. It will take a further 8 or 9 weeks to mature to eating standard then. So I’ll have to check back in with you later on…
Dirty Whites 