Tag Archives: Cheese

Say cheese

Our goat’s cheese comes of age

We didn’t manage to find a billy for our girls last year so unfortunately our goat milk supply is dwindling.  However, in times when the white stuff was flowing plentifully, we set out to make our own cheddar.

According to the British Cheese Board, a mild cheddar is typically ready at about 3 months of age; medium matured cheddar at 5 to 6 months; mature cheddar at around 9 months, extra mature at around 15 months and vintage at 18 months or more.

So, a certain amount of patience is required for hard cheesemaking and also a leap of faith.  A cheese will not be tasted for quite some time  which leaves you open for a huge disappointment.  Using the same recipe which was untested, we decided to make a cheese every week for a couple of months.  It took 3-4 days from start to finish per cheese, which included pressing and coating and each one was labelled and stored in the fridge.

The first one we tasted after 3 months and it wasn’t anything special, rather bland.  After that we tried at 6 months and then 9 months.

They still weren’t very good, nothing like the commercial cheddars, so we lost interest and several of the cheeses have sat untouched in the fridge for over a year.

In fact the one we tried last week was made on 8/10/2012.

There was a little mould on the wax coating but we rubbed it off and cut into it.  The texture was slightly crumbly and it  was much more like you would expect cheddar to be.  Although far from perfect but it was creamy and full of flavour with just a little tang.  Certainly the best we have achieved so far. and I think we can definitely call it vintage!

Say cheese!

Learning to make our own cheese

Since we weaned Albert the calf from our goat, we have been milking said goat twice a day every day.

Subsequently it has been some time since we’ve bought milk, and more recently we have ventured into the exciting world of cheesemaking! Our cheese press, fashioned from some scrap wood and other bits and pieces welded together, is ideal for hard cheeses, and we have some nice looking Dunlop (a traditional Scottish cheese) and Cheddar on the go. Unfortunately it will be quite a while before we know if they have been successful as they take time to mature.

On the other hand, soft cheeses are ready a little sooner. One of our latest is Feta, which is stored in brine (pictured). Delicious!

We also hope our other goat is in kid, although it’s very near to the end of the mating season and we probably won’t know for some time if she’s pregnant. If we’re lucky, we could double our production of milk!