Last week Sarah and I had a great time learning how to make cheese. For those of you who love cheese but haven't got a clue how it's made, it's a real eye opener.
Here's the rough process. Pour milk into a huge vat (500 litres or so) and heat to pasteurise and kill off the bad bugs. When it reverts to a sensible temperature, add rennet to begin the curdling process. Rennet was originally found in the stomachs of calves, and allows them to convert liquid milk into a more solid form so they can absorb the nutrition from it. Now the same effect can be created using enzymes in plants to satisfy our vegetarian friends.
The whole thing begins to solidify and then needs to be cut into small chunks less than an inch square. At this stage the consistency is like sloppy blancmange. Gradually the curds (the solid bits) begin to separate from the whey (the watery liquid) and form glutinous lumps that feel like soft popcorn or rubbery scrambled egg. We are up to our armpits stirring the stuff – thoroughly sterilized of course.
Eventually we drain the whey away, and get the curds onto a large table where we can mix in various flavours – fenugreek, caraway, mustard and so on – and press the resultant mixtures into different press sizes to make the final cheeses. They are then pressed and drained ready for placing in brine and being refrigerated.
It's hard manual labour, and we'll see if our efforts were worth it when the results are delivered for eating in about four weeks.
