Cheese: From Field to Plate

Today I was able to join Thomas and milk the sheep. I woke up just before 7 am and headed out to the meadow where the sheep were sleepily grazing. It took us a while to get their attention and group them together, especially as the ram and his new-found girlfriend were intent on cuddling. We left them and led the herd to the milking stand under a pink sky but eventually Thomas had to go and get them by bike.

It took us an hour and a half to milk the sheep, first by hand to avoid any dirt that might have accumulated around the mammary glands from ending up in the cheese. We then clean the udders with cloths and disinfecting wipes before using the milking machine. This milk, along with Thursday's and Friday's, adding up to about 90 litres, is used a few hours later to make cheese. Between milking and making cheese, Thomas and I had breakfast and watched BBC Planet Earth 2 videos.

Before you can make anything out of the milk, it has to be cooled and cultures and rennet (all organically produced) are added. Rennet is an enzyme that encourages the proteins in the milk to come together, enabling coagulation. Within 40 minutes, the mixture forms a curd and becomes firm like yogurt which you can then cut into pieces. The smaller the pieces, the more compact the finished product, the harder the cheese. So around 12, when the curd was ready, Gudrun and I went to the cheese dairy and cut it very finely to make gouda.

To form the cheese, the curd is scooped and pressed into cheese molds and left to drain for several hours. The whey (aka the water in the milk which is left over from cheese-making) is given to the pigs, they drink it with delight! The cheese then needs to be turned and drain overnight. Tomorrow they will be salted and deposited in the aging room for a few weeks before they can be sold and savoured.

I'm sitting by the fire writing this and have just remembered it is my job to turn the cheese this evening.

Sascha xx