Day 13 and 14 - Life of Cheese

Over Saturday and Sunday, the rind has continued to bloom. The protective coat that we gave it is being a little bit aggressive but not to worry, we will scrub that off tomorrow to reveal the underlying yeast layer

Day 12 - Life of Cheese

My photographic skills are not all that flash making it a bit difficult to see in this photo, but there is a distinctive rind formation around the pate of the cheese. It has that orange tinge on the rind that you could see starting to develop yesterday. I have broken the cheese in half to show that the interior is still very much chalky and crumbly.

Day 11 - Life of Cheese

Our little cheesey friend has been washed with the solution again. You can see the scrap marks from the brush as it delicately scratched the surface of the cheese. The slightly orangey tinge is starting to show. This is the yeast growing on the rind.

Day 10 - Life of Cheese

Nice little rind development ready to be scrubbed off. Tomorrow, this little guy will transform......again!

Day 9 - Life of Cheese

Look closely at the surface of this cheese. You can see some mould growing. This is from one of the cultures we added at the milk stage. For our factory, we have some unique flora in the atmosphere so we need to control the surface environment (principally ph and moisture) to ensure the desired yeast grow first before the opportunistic ones take hold. This is why we add a special mould to help create the perfect environment for our chosen yeast. It's a bit like, if you prepare the soil before you plant it creates optimal conditions for the plant to thrive, otherwise the plant would struggle and not grow quite as well. This is what we are trying to achieve to ensure the washed rinds develop properly.

Day 8 - Life of Cheese

For a cheese to become a truly washed rind style, we need to develop the rind with a variety of yeast and bacteria. To do this, we literally wash the cheese with a solution. The solution is made up of yeast, bacteria, salt and water. This is then scrubbed onto the cheese using a brush. This action, scraps the surface and therefore provides more surface area and opportunity for the organisms to grow. The process of scrubbing also enables us to spread the solution across all surfaces of the cheese. Our cheese has had its first wash today.

Day 6 and 7 - Life of cheese

On the surface, all appears to be quiet, but deep inside those millions of bacteria are working their magic.

Day 5 - Life of Cheese

Take a look at this. This photo is a view of our cheese cut in half with a knife (smooth side) and then quartered by breaking it in half. You can see that the texture is almost crumbly. This is due to the high levels of acidity. At this stage the cheese tastes quite acidic. Not extremely sharp and tart like tartaric acid but more like the gentle sourness of citric acid. There is also a prominent creamy, milky character that fills the palate. Interesting to taste, but certainly not suitable as a table cheese at this stage.

Day 4 - Life of cheese

Snug as a bug, in its little humidity crib, our little frommage is now working on developing its rind. The bacteria have almost finished their primary fermentation and are starting to work on flavour development

Day 3 - Life of Cheese

Our beautiful round of cheese is now sitting patiently waiting to be rolled into the maturation room. After being brined for about 30-35 minutes yesterday, it has been relaxing on the wire racks and dripping off any excess surface moisture. Our cheesemakers have delicately turned it to make sure all sides of the cheese are evenly drained and semi-dried. The cheese will spend the rest of today in this warmer room until being moved to its home for the next 2 weeks.

Day 2 - Life of Cheese

Much has changed in the life of our little cheese in the last 24 hours. Through the science of cheesemaking, which I won't go into now, we have managed to extract and form a gorgeous pale white curd from the milk to create our 200 gm cheese. It really is totally amazing. Within this little round form, are millions of tiny bacteria that have begun their own journey. These tiny beasts have fermented the lactose (sugars) in the milk and converted it to lactic acid. It is these living creatures that will determine the texture and flavour of our cheese over time. Keep them happy and they will do their job perfectly, but beware, if they don't get what they want, they become evil!

In our picture today, the cheese is floating in the brine (saturated salt water bath). The alternative would be to dry salt them, which means essentially dusting all surfaces of the cheese evenly. Salting is another preserving step in the cheesemaking process and also helps flavour development.

Day 1 - Life of Cheese

Day 1 in the life of our little cheese is of course the milk stage. So here it is, the silky, smooth, creamy, delicious fresh milk direct from the farm. The girls start moving onto the rotating milking system at about 7 am, where their very full udders are suction capped to remove their fresh milk. At about 8am, Helen drives our little milk tank to the dairy and picks up the milk for our days production. Into the our vat is goes where the cheese journey begins.....

The Life of Washington - the photographic journey

As I scan the net, viewing some amazing projects, the thought of the life of a cheese came to mind. We are often asked how cheese ripens and develops and I usually use the comparative of a banana ripening. Slightly weird but I think people seem to understand.

Since I am certainly no wordsmith, the best way to describe it in the non face to face way is through a picture or two, so, here we go. First picture will be up on Monday :)