Cheese tips from the experts

I went to the Great British Cheese Festival in Cardiff yesterday and tasted a huge range of cheeses, some amazing, some awful. I discovered some new ingredient combinations to try out with my cheeses like spring onion and sun died tomatoes, spring onion with garlic, the cheddar with harissa was great. I had a chat with a cheesemaker at the Bath cheees stand about cheesemaking and he has given me some tips for next time. He recommended heating the milk to a temperature of around 63 degress rather than 90 and that the way my curd developed was not right, it should not be lots of small lumps of curd but a large solid block.

It also appears that the starter culture should have been placed in the freezer once opened and that it may no longer be so effective, we shall have to see. The next batch will be made up shortly.

Cheese updates

It's been a while since i produced a batch of cheese but a new batch of goats cheese is on the way. i've been doing some research and talking to some people to work out what went wrong last time and try to improve it this time. Should hopefully be making up the starter culture tomorrow.

Don't forget the British Cheese Festival takes place this saturday in Cardiff, hundreds of producers offering samples and lots of cheeses to buy. I'm going in the name of research you understand and certainly won't be repeating last year where i sampled one piece from every stand. Actually, yes i will. This time however, i will ride the mechanical bull at the start of the day, not at the end after the cheese and the beer tent

Goats Cheese

The new batch of starter culture will be made this evening for the Goats Cheese. Hopefully this starter will work better than the last batch.