Raw Milk - UK. Where to get

[cheeseboard]

Hi everyone, does anyone have any good sources of raw milk, here in the UK ?

I'm not quite there yet, but I hope to get to a point where I'll be requiring raw milk in the near future. And so am trying to get my sources ready.

I've found a couple of places, dawlicious.co.uk & www.wayside-farm.co.uk which are just outside London, so not far.......but I am wondering what experiences other people have of delivery, pricing etc ?

[pickles]

You could try https://www.rawmilk.org.uk/.
There are a number of government rules and regulations regarding the sale of raw milk. Most of this information can be gleaned from a Google search.
As far as I know raw milk can only be purchased at source, that is, you buy it at the farm where it is produced. It must not by law be delivered or distributed from elsewhere.
I buy from a local farm here in Lancashire at £1.00 per litre.
It isn't essential to cheese-making and many folks use easily available supermarket whole milk which is much cheaper [about 60p per litre] and still gives good results.

[cheeseboard]

Hi, cheers for that. In that case, I'll continue with Tesco Whole Milk, as that comes at 48p/litre and is quite convenient to get. With the farms being a good drive, the Tescos are all over the place and my nearest big one less than a mile so I can go there on my bike.

Made a mozzarella the other day, very nice, made some great pizzas, with the dough from the bread machine. Am really looking forwards to having a proper go at the parmesan, have to watch marek video again and have a go when  the cultures arrive......

[pickles]

I'm almost as new as you at this cheese-making thing. I don't pretend to be any sort of expert.

The first lesson I learned was that when making a hard cheese I needed to use more than the few drops of rennet that the label on the bottle advised.
I've been using a half to one teaspoon in 6 or 7 litres of milk and I'm getting a nice clean break now.

I was disappointed with my bland first cheeses having given them a month or two to mature as suggested in the recipes.
Eventually I discovered that at least 3 months and more like six months was what it took to get the results I had been looking for.
So my second lesson was that cheese isn't fast food and the more time you take the better and the tastier.

As I said at the beginning of this I am no expert and I imagine I have many more things to learn yet.

As a foot note, I can recommend the recipe for Edam in the home page to this site. I have had good results from it and found the instructions easy to follow.
I would recommend aging the cheese for at least three months rather than the 3-8 weeks it recommends. It is worth the wait.
The recipe is at: http://cheeseforum.org/articles/edam-cheese-making-recipe/.

Once I get chatting I never stop...

Here's another tip. I invested in a vacuum packing machine. I've been able to use it to seal all sorts of items and I reckon it was worth the money.
I vacuum pack my cheeses which means I don't need to struggle to control humidity in a cheese cave. It works for me but it is controversial. Some recommend it and others decry it. It is one of those things where you have to pick a side. I am pragmatic in outlook, if it works I use it.

...and here's my last word, probably:
I made a cheap 'temporary' cheese press that has been fulfilling my needs. It is just a length of timber, a hinge and several old plastic bottles[5L, 2L and 1L] rescued from the recycle bin. I can give more details about it if you are interested.

Anyway, may the gods of cheese smile on you and always ask if you need to know more.
There are other friendly faces here who might well have the answer you seek.

[mikekchar]

Single strength rennet in good shape should coagulate milk at a rate of 0.2 ml of rennet per liter of milk.  So for 6 liters of milk, you would need 1.2 ml of rennet, which is almost exactly 1/4 of a teaspoon.  So if you are adding double or quadruple then something is definitely wrong.  There are a couple of things.  Are you using calcium chloride?  If you use pasteurised milk, you *must* use calcium chloride.  I use slightly more 30% solution calcium chloride than I do rennet (for 4 liters, I would use 16 drops of rennet and 20 drops of calcium chloride).  The next possibility is, are you diluting the rennet?  You should, but you *must* dilute it in unchlorinated room temperature water.  The easiest way is to use bottled water which is normally sterilised with UV light.  Previously I think you mentioned using campden tablets.  While this will dechlorinate water, I'm not 100% sure it will work well for rennet.  You might want to try with bottled water.  Finally, the other possibility is that the starter culture you are using is not acidifying the milk properly.  What starter cultures do you usually use?  Adding extra rennet will work, but it adds more enzymes to the cheese, which can lead to bitter flavours, so it's best to use less rennet rather than more.

[cheeseboard]

I was disappointed with my bland first cheeses having given them a month or two to mature as suggested in the recipes.

Yes, me too, have figured out its the cultures that give the flavour, so they're on order, waiting for those now.

I made a cheap 'temporary' cheese press that has been fulfilling my needs. It is just a length of timber, a hinge and several old plastic bottles[5L, 2L and 1L] rescued from the recycle bin. I can give more details about it if you are interested.

Yes, a 5L bottle or can is c.5kg, so that's ideal, you can make up the typical weights easily ! Great idea am going to do that.

[cheeseboard]

Hi so I got my 1st cacio cacallo & parmesan is being squashed you can see my improvised 10kg press !

I could not get the pH correct on the cacio cavallo so it didn't stretch & be as elastic as it should be. I wrote on a Gavin Webber live chat YouTube & he said it was the pH. So now got to figure out a bit of the science as regards what's affecting this pH.

Also got really snookered with the measurements as sometimes the culture is written in g in recipes & I totally struggle to convert that to TSP as different cultures have different density so to convert these fractions to TSP feels really involved. For me. Maybe am over-thinking it. I'm ok on converting rennet ICMU from 200 to the 150 ICMU that I bought so I'm ok on the Maths. But the g to TSP throws me. I know that precision massively affects everything.

[cheeseboard]

Seems that 1/8th tsp of culture is what's required for 5 litres of milk, so am going to use that and see how it goes.

Source: https://gnltd.co.uk/products/cheese-culture-thermophilic-b-for-italian-style-cheeses

[pickles]

Measurement by volume is not ideal, especially if you are going for accuracy. If you can, opt for measuring by weight, even for liquids.
If you get an inexpensive digital scale that can work in 0.1g increments you could get this covered. Measure out 1 tsp of whatever, weigh it, then you can work out how much 1/8 tsp would be in grammes, say. In future you will be able to accurately measure this out in weight on the scale.
I have such a scale that works well, it can weigh up to 3kg and gets used frequently for brewing, cheesemaking and baking.
It costs about £25 with free delivery on amazon.co.uk this is good value for money.
TANITA KD-321 Digital Kitchen Scale 3Kg-Silver
This is a personal recommendation, I have no connection with the manufacturer or distributor.
It has a number of interesting features that make it indispensible. If you check out the amazon description you can find out more.

Coming at the problem from a different direction I make up starter cultures and freeze them in ice cube trays. Doing this makes it easy to add culture in a regular and repeatable fashion.
It is worthwhile to read up on this technique.

[mikekchar]

For small cheeses, I find that making a "mother cutlure" is a much better way of measuring culture amounts.  Essentially, make a yogurt from the culture and then add about 15% of the weight of the milk in yogurt to the cheese (i.e. 15 grams of yogurt per liter / 1 tablespoon per quart of milk).  To make the yogurt, innoculate the a mesophilic culture at about 34 C for 10-12 hours or a thermophilic culture for 8 hours at 42 C.  I actually bought a yogurt maker since I now do this *all the time*.

[cheeseboard]

TANITA KD-321 Digital Kitchen Scale 3Kg-Silver

Hi pickles, I took a look at this one, it looks a very handy tool, it will sort out a few headaches I've had about some recipes quoting g and some x/tsp.....Will have to put it on my birthday list.

I like the sound of you and mike doing these starter cultures, am going to look around for some more information on that.

My parmesan is coming in at £ 4.36 milk (9 litres), c.£ 0.95 cultures/lipaise, so c.£5.31 per kg of parmesan. Compares to shop cheapest £ 15 per kg. so does come in lighter, just the time and effort, but i hope its delicious. just can't get an exact idea if its worked/not worked until 6 months or so have passed..........

[pickles]

As I mentioned before I'm no expert, so take what I say with a pinch of salt.

My first experiences have taught me to be very patient. Good cheese seems to need time.
I would imagine that a parmesan type would need 12 months, at least, to ripen and maybe longer to fully mature.
Decent flavour doesn't develop quickly, but it seems that it is well worth the wait.
Patience is inexpensive yet it is an essential ingredient.

As for making frozen cultures, I agree with mike and have a few different bags in the freezer including some I use for yoghurt making. It is very convenient.
I just take out a few cubes the day before I need them and put them in a small container in the fridge to melt.

[cheeseboard]

Hi pickles, yes patience is a virtue. I'd like to be sure my parmesan's are really on the mark way before the 12 months is up though. I think i have to get a ph meter and the scales for the precision on the 0.1g of the cultures and lipaise.

Is there anything that can be done to monitor the cheese month by month ? I don't have a cheese cave or anything, my parents stuck it all in the shed and it was really fine. They probably wrapped it in newspaper and put it high up e.g. to keep the mice out, but more than that I don't really know. Probably made it when its starting to get cooler, so its that magic temperature in the shed at least initially, that would have set it right I am just speculating now.

[pickles]

I can understand your need to know how the ripening process is progressing but the best thing you can do is leave it alone, your cheese will mature much better that way. Opening it up before it is ready won't do it any good and the result of impatience will more than likely be disappointing (this is from experience btw).
The professionals use a tool called a trier for long aged wheels however I don't think it is necessary for an amateur beginner and it would be used only after much time had passed in one of a large batch of cheeses.

Your shed could well have a spot good for cheese ripening, after all some Cheddar cheese in the UK is matured in the caves of Cheddar Gorge. As you say some sort of insulation might be useful. Newspaper and straw in a box maybe, or the more modern cool box. You might need to experiment (but we are talking British summers here). I suppose you could temporarily refridgerate indoors if it got over warm. As I mentioned before I am no expert.
I vac pac my cheeses, frowned on by some, but it does in a simple way solve the problem of humidity control.

When using the internet to collect information bear in mind the local climate of the source information. Things like humidity, temperature, altitude etc will affect the end product and you might well have to adjust your recipe, ingredients and so on, accordingly if the author's local conditions are different from your own.

As far as I can see the variety of cheeses available in the world has evolved as makers adjusted and tweaked the process to suit local conditions. It is my opinion that it might be better to attempt to evolve a cheese of your own, using local conditions, ingredients etc, rather than trying to emulate something exotic usually made in a very different part of the world. Don't try to fight your locality, bend to fit in with it.

A lot of what I write here is my opinion rather being the only way to approach things. I believe cheese making needs, as well as patience, an open mind and a willingness to experiment.

So, best wishes with your efforts,
from another cheese maker who is also just learning the ropes!

[cheeseboard]

Hi yes, am definitely going to experiment a bit, its been quite fun so far. I've now got my (cheap) ph Meter on order, if I get on with this, I'll get the expensive ones, but for a beginner that will do. Also have ordered the book that Mike recommended, Mastering Basic Cheesemaking: The Fun and Fundamentals of Making Cheese at Home by Caldwell, Gianaclis.

So that will be a great eye opener I hope, the Youtube videos are really helpful, just feels like its necessary to know a bit more about the chemistry and the process now. Agree the trier is for more advanced people, but have to get it a bit more on the nail to avoid it being rough in 12 months, that will be hard.

Much appreciate your comments, think you know a bit more than you let on !