For this day we will learn the traditional techniques of natural cheese production from real artisans, drawing from pre-industrial traditions across Europe. The recipes and affinage methods are techniques that are still used today by fringe makers, who propagate the true essence of controlling milk with acidity, salt and gravity. From the remote high-altitude Alpine chalets of Italy and France to the ancient mountains of Wales and Ireland, this is one of the earliest and most useful ways to understand food preservation at its most transformative.

The aim of this course is to democratise cheesemaking by sharing long-established techniques of milk preservation for the home.

Learn to understand milk once again, its origin and provenance, to reconnect to the countless generations that came before us. Regain trust in your senses as you transform real milk into real cheese and butter at home.

Disclaimer - this course will change the way you eat cheese forever.

WHO IS THIS COURSE FOR?

This course is for anyone interested in learning long established techniques of transforming milk into cheese, using time honoured and completely natural methods. The mass produced cheese which we openly consume nowadays simply has nothing to do with its origin story. Real cheese is hard to come by but is not difficult to make, and it is the closest thing we have to alchemy.

This course is for anyone who wants nurture their inherent ability to preserve food. Cooks, homesteaders, preppers, anyone looking to extend the shelf-life of their food and save money by not throwing things away unnecessarily. All the knowledge imparted on this course comes from the real techniques of fringe artisans, who have developed this very human skill for thousands years in a time before plastics and chemicals. This course aims to give you a profound understanding of the arc of a food’s life, and will change the way you eat.

THE SHAPE OF THE DAY

09:30 - 10:00 am WELCOME!

Welcome to the Booley, for coffee and tea with raw milk

10:00 - 10:30 MILK THEORY - Heritage and science

A short seminar around dairy, provenance and the benefits of raw milk. How to engage with and source good milk, and discussions about the traditions of cheesemaking, pastoralism, butter, cream and dispelling the myth that cheese is “best left to the cheesemakers”.

10:30 - 11:00 SKIMMING CREAM

We begin separating cream from milk using traditional wooden skimmers in readiness for buttermaking, as well as discussing how to create cultured butter at home, to access authentic complexity of flavour and look at the benefits of using cultures for food preservation.

11:30 - 12:00 CHURNING AND SHAPING BUTTER

We look at the traditional ways to churn cream into butter, usually accompanied by traditional churning songs. Once butter emerges, we conserve the buttermilk for bread making over fire, followed by salting and shaping the butter using paddles.

12:00 - 12:30 COAGULATION

The raw milk is added to the cheese vat and heated over fire to incubate, before rennet is added to coagulate the milk into curds.

13:00 LUNCH

A celebration of dairy with recipes pulled from the Up There The Last archive including:

Butter and anchovy on open-fire bread

Irish champ paired with a glass of buttermilk

Skibb-steamed potatoes with seaweed butter and many more!

14:00

YOGHURT AND REAL COTTAGE CHEESE

A deep dive into one of the oldest techniques of milk preservation as we taste, salt and hang in muslin milk which has begun to coagulate under its native population of lactic acid bacteria, and how to harness its transformative effects for home use.

14:30

CUTTING THE CURD

Observing the clean break method and ultra-traditional curd cutting by hand, as well as using traditional tools.

15:00
DRAINAGE AND PRESERVATION

The curds will be packed by hand into moulds to drain, and salted at the end of the day. The cheese which has been hanging and draining through muslin is salted and rolled into balls, seasoned with herbs and stored under olive oil.

16:00 - 17:00

AFFINAGE AND TASTING

The secret to not only successful but delicious cheesemaking is the maturing process, known as affinage. Through a tasting of some beautiful examples of authentic farmhouse cheese, we will look at bloomy rinds, blues and washed rind techniques, as well as the different methods and conditions in which your cheese will thrive at home. This knowledge can transfer to meat and fish, and serves to give you incredibly empowering control of food at home.

17:00 HOME

You will leave with your own jar of cottage cheese, a pat of your own hand-made butter and your very own cheese to look after and mature, with open contact to Up There The Last for reference as your cheese matures.