Classes for Making Cheese in Christchurch
OUR CLASSES
This series of cheesemaking courses is being held in our home kitchen. We are a mud brick home with a wood burner and a farmhouse style kitchen for cosy times learning to make cheese. Classes will be demonstration format for groups of six to eight people. If you have a group of budding or regular cheesemakers wanting your own tailor-made course, or the advertised courses are at the wrong time for you, drop me a line to arrange your own bespoke course.
Classes are graded not so much on level of difficulty as your level of knowledge and practice of cheese making and how confident and practically competent you are in the kitchen. It gives you an idea of where you can expect the class to be pitched but I will make sure that no one is left behind with questions unanswered should you decide to jump in at the deep end with a more challenging cheese! Or equally, attend a less challenging class than your level of competence to learn the subtle nuances of adapted cheese making techniques to suit the home environment.
So, when choosing a course ask yourself were you fit with the grading below and then choose a course and style of cheese you are comfortable with. I will keep adding more courses to cover all the styles of cheeses listed plus more over time. At each class we can also have a discussion on any techniques you are unsure on how to execute to make similar cheeses. Many cheeses are fairly similar in their making but with some tweaking of ingredients and/or methodology you can get a different result.
So when choosing a course ask yourself would you consider yourself to be a…
Novice: Have never made any type of cheese before but perhaps have made yoghurt or yoghurt cheese.
Recommend: cream cheese, paneer, ricotta, yoghurt – both animal and plant based, mascarpone, quark, sour cream.
Beginner: Have made some simple acid coagulated cheeses like ricotta and paneer.
Recommend: feta, haloumi, farmhouse, mozzarella.
Competent: Have made a variety of cheeses, including cutting and moulding curds and perhaps including pressed cheeses.
Recommend: Gouda, Cheddar, Manchego, Parmesan, Valençay (ash ripened goat milk), camembert/brie, blue, washed rind.
Proficient: Regularly and successfully make a variety of styles of cheese and know how to age them well.
Recommend: Attending a class focused on a particular cheese you are interested in making or want to improve on. The Gouda class will focus on how to successfully press a cheese should that be the technique you want to learn more about.
My classes are focused on the practicalities of making cheese successfully in the home kitchen and are not a high brow discussion about cheese making. Storing the cheese and dairy products that you make is an additional art that will be discussed during classes. It is fair to say that successful cheese maturation or affinage is arguably harder than the making of the cheese! As a family we are self-sufficient for all our dairy needs for the whole year, but we milk for less than half of the year.
Please go to the shop to book your classes