So....... I was minding my own affairs at work the other day trying to keep slightly ahead of the workload that was piling along behind me in its usual avalanche when Pam phoned me.
She had just heard a segment on the radio of a cheese maker being interviewed about what he does, he informed the listening public that he holds short 3 night evening courses in the making of goats cheese and she thought I may be interested.
Well lets put it this way, interest led straight to my email and a request for a place, unfortunately which included a substantial amount of gnashing of teeth as Pam would not be able to join me due to other commitments.
And so it came to pass I found myself in a group of 10 people for the first evenings lessons
with Pepe Charlot which included a discussion on the type of cheese produced the flavour, looks and feel of the cheese.
This also included tastings of the various type of cheese - never complain when tasting excellent cheese and then the actual hands on participation in the making of cheese
I wont go into a long involved blah blah explanation, but rather put in a whole slew of pictures, it will give a much better idea.... what do the ubiquitous "They" always say.... "A picture is worth a thousand words"
All in all it was an incredibly interesting and eye opening course, that has given me a desire to learn yet more on the making of cheese, so more to come on this exciting venture.
She had just heard a segment on the radio of a cheese maker being interviewed about what he does, he informed the listening public that he holds short 3 night evening courses in the making of goats cheese and she thought I may be interested.
Well lets put it this way, interest led straight to my email and a request for a place, unfortunately which included a substantial amount of gnashing of teeth as Pam would not be able to join me due to other commitments.
And so it came to pass I found myself in a group of 10 people for the first evenings lessons
with Pepe Charlot which included a discussion on the type of cheese produced the flavour, looks and feel of the cheese.
This also included tastings of the various type of cheese - never complain when tasting excellent cheese and then the actual hands on participation in the making of cheese
I wont go into a long involved blah blah explanation, but rather put in a whole slew of pictures, it will give a much better idea.... what do the ubiquitous "They" always say.... "A picture is worth a thousand words"
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| Our Buckets of milk waiting to be attended to |
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| Work surface in the cheesery |
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| Milk being brought up to temperature prior to adding culture and rennet |
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| Milk in for final inoculation |
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| Culture and rennet dropper |
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| Hope my cheese looks like this one day soon |
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| Smidgeon of culture being added to small jug of milk taken from the bucket |
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| Culture being stirred in prior to adding back to the bucket of milk |
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| bucket of milk being added to culture |
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| bucket of milk being added to culture |
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| Rennet |
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| Rennet being added to the milk |
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| Milk being stirred prior to closing the lid to relax overnight |
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| No good course is complete with out a nice glass of wine and cheese for tasting- all educational of course |
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| Draining tubs being setup |
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| Draining tubs being setup |
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| Draining tubs being setup - Cheese cloth |
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| Draining tubs being setup - Cheese cloth |
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| Curds being scooped out of the bucket and transferred to the draining tubs |
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| Let the draining of the whey begin |
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| Drained curds |
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| Drained curds get stirred to get more whey out |
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| Curds left over night to drain |
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| Curds now have salt added |
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| Valencay being prepared and draining |
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| Pepe's being prepared |
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| Pepe's being prepared and draining |
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| Cabecou moulds ready |
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| Cabecou molds ready |
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| Cheese being smeared into the mold, these moulds will be removed when the cheese is set leaving behind Cabecou's |
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| Smoothing |
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| Pepe's draining |
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| Buchette being rolled out |
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| Buchette ready for the fridge |
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| Buchette into the fridge for maturing |
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| De-molded Valencey's |
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| Final tasting at the end of a very interesting course |
All in all it was an incredibly interesting and eye opening course, that has given me a desire to learn yet more on the making of cheese, so more to come on this exciting venture.
I will also do an update to this blog item once the rest of my cheese reaches maturity and just before I gobble it all down
