Hello,
(Please understand that I do not cast ANY aspersions on making cheese with starters and rennet, and recipes, just because I had several 'proof of concepts' that I undertook!!)
In 1999 I set out to prove that clean raw milk clabbered could be turned in to many different kinds of cheeses, without cooking, rennet, starters, freezing, etc. I called my modern day procedure based on old world techniques, ‘Bonnyclabber’, after the term Bonny Clabber anglicized by the Scots-Irish in America in the 16th century. Bonny Clabber, as you probably know, was a daily staple for country folk with access to raw milk, and simply refers to fresh clabber eaten with cornbread, or sugar, or molasses, etc. This was on the one hand an effort to prove that a healthy buttermilk-type product, (raw milk of any kind is illegal to sell in Virginia), could be made into aged cheese, but on the other hand it was my way to possibly preserve a heritage product in hopes that cultured raw milk products might be legal once again. On the THIRD hand, it was also an effort on my part to be sustainable by producing farmstead cheeses from very clean, very healthy milk with a much lower cost since I wouldn’t need to order lots of industrially produced additives, rennet, etc.
We set about to reduce the thick pamphlet which was the PMO, (pasteurized milk ordinance) dairy requirements that referred to large-scale cow dairies, down to believable and do-able micro-dairy facility. Because I wanted to make raw milk cheese here, I wanted our facility to reflect high standards such as Grade A milk handling. We do not have a pasteurizer on-site, but because the cheese is made from fresh warm milk in a Grade-A built facility, we can claim that the milk is handled Grade A. In other words, that is a distinction usually used for those who are going to bottle milk, after chilling and pasteurizing large quantities. We don’t do that, but we handle the milk cleanly and carefully for our cheeses.
There’s some information on our site, but I am hoping that my book, The Bonnyclabber Way will be in print VERY soon. This will chronicle our efforts over the last ten years to prove that raw milk can be handled cleanly in a sustainable micro-dairy facility, and that many cheeses can be made from clabber by different rind treatments, and affinage. I make them fresh all the way to hard, washed rind, or cloth-bound, or herbed, oil rubbed, beeswaxed, ashed, and on and on. All Cheesemaking is artistry and science, based on observation and practice.
Happy Cheesing,
Rona Myers Sullivan
PS. I hope I can get the book out soon to clear up some things in detail. Until then I have sent many articles to Dairy Goat Journal on Sustainable Cheesemaking, and if you search my name on there you can read the archives.