Lancashire cheese (from Keeping a Family Cow)

While we are waiting for our new Jersey cows (the paperwork is taking forever - they have had blood tests and are fine but we need the passport saying that before they can move) I have felt inspired to make cheese again. It has been some time, soft cheeses went well but hard cheeses not so much. They tasted OK, but the texture was all wrong. We may or may not get milk from the cows now. If not we will have to wait until next year when they will hopefully have calves - if we can manage to get them AIed sometime soon - assuming they EVER turn up!

The recipe is here, but I have quartered the volume (my mold is 6cm radius by 9cm high) and changed to metric measurements and temperatures - I have basically written what I did so I can repeat, I would start with the original if you want to try this cheese, but the conversions are here if you need them.

4l raw milk (it seems semi skimmed to me as there is not much cream on it)

200ml cream (I used UHT)

Mesophilic starter (I used 6 ice cubes of cultured butter milk)

Liquid rennet (according to instuctions on the packet I used 1 ml in cold water)

1.5 tblsp preserving salt (or more or less to taste)

Cheese mold and press

I sterilise everything I am going to use by boiling it in the pan the milk will go in before I start. That way the pan is sterilised too.

Put milk and cream in double boiler and heat to 31°C (actually went to 32.5 by mistake)

Add the culture and keep at 31°C for 45 mins

Add the rennet and stir in. Keep at same temperature for 50 mins or until you get a clean break.

Cut the curd in to 1 cm pieces and let sit for 5 mins to solidify a bit. I use a palet knife and slice one way, then at 90 degrees to that, then put the knife over at 45 degrees and reslice the lines I did one way.

Stir the curds for 10 mins, then let sit for a further 5 mins

Strain through a cheese cloth and squeeze to knit the curds together.

Put the curds back in the pan (still in the warm double boiler but don't heat any more) and leave for 15 mins

Turn the curds and leave for a further 15 mins

Cut the curd mat in half and put one piece on the other and leave another 10 mins, turn and leave for further 10 mins

Cut the curd in to 1 cm x 2 cm pieces and put in a bowl with the salt and mix well

Prepare mold with piece of cheese cloth in it and put the curds in to the mold. Put in to press and apply medium pressure for an hour (I put 5kg on my press, not sure what that makes the pressure, it might be x3)

Take the cheese out of the mold and rewrap and turn over

Return to the press at increased pressure (I did 10kg) for 6 hours

Unwrap the cheese and mature at 10-15°C (or as cool as you can). Normal fridge is probably a bit cold. You want the environment to be reasonably humid too. At the moment it is here. I have found in the past if I put in a box and try to keep humidity up the cheese goes off. I waxed the cheese also after a day to let it dry out.

Turn cheese daily for first week and twice weekly thereafter. Ready at 4 weeks and will get better up to about 12 weeks and will go downhill after that apparently.