· James Torr · Personal  · 1 min read

My recent foray into cheesemaking. From top left in the cover photo: Bel Paese, Caerphilly, Marcellin. There's a nice book called The Art of Natural Cheesemaking that I started with. His approach is very much avoiding the sterile modern approach, also found in modern beer making, and using diverse microbial cultures found in raw milk and kefir to produce interesting and characterful cheese. I used my "house" amasi culture which I've had for 18 months or so now, a South African lacto ferment that has seemed to have survived better than any other I've used.

My recent foray into cheesemaking.

My recent foray into cheesemaking. From top left in the cover photo: Bel Paese, Caerphilly, Marcellin.

There’s a nice book called The Art of Natural Cheesemaking that I started with. His approach is very much avoiding the sterile modern approach, also found in modern beer making, and using diverse microbial cultures found in raw milk and kefir to produce interesting and characterful cheese. I used my “house” amasi culture which I’ve had for 18 months or so now, a South African lacto ferment that has seemed to have survived better than any other I’ve used.

I had previously worried about humidity and cross-contamination with meat ferments, but as you can see, you can keep them inside their own container when ageing (afinage) and control that environment.

Looking forward to seeing how these turn out. I expect the first batches to be a little wobbly…

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