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Last weekend the stove was fired up, milk sourced, rennet dug out of the back of the fridge - and cheese production resumed!

It’s been over six months since the last cheese I made, having a beautiful little son has meant my weekends are spent quite differently than before - but last Sunday saw me back in the apron.

As a re-introduction cheese I went back to the original camembert. As well as being a fairly easy cheese it has the advantage of being ready to eat within a few weeks, and it’s still one of my favourites.

To add a bit of extra interest I put some coarsely crushed peppercorns into the middle. I’ve never tried this before, but I broke them up with a morter and pestle, poured boiling water over them to sterilise, the when I was laying the cheese out into the hoops I put half the curds in, sprinkled a teaspoon of pepper in each one, and then filled with the rest of the curds. It looks right, although the peppercorns are maybe not spread as evenly throughout the cheese body as I was imagining.

I’ll let you know how it turns out. If it works well, my mind is already filled with other things that might work: sundried tomato, olives, wasabi, pickled onion, chilli… who knows where it could end!

My wife and I are now parents!

Tobias George Crook (Toby) was born at 7:31pm on Monday 3rd March, weighing 4.065 kg (8 lb 15 oz), 50cm long and looking quite spunky.

Here’s a couple of photos!

Last time I made washed rind it was a bit of a failure - I tried the one in the book called ’soft washed rind’ and it turned a bit too soft and became, basically, mush.

So this time I’ve tried the one called ‘hard washed rind’. I  made the cheese itself about 3 weeks ago now and it turned out well, it’s a fairly basic hard cheese recipe, very similar to the one I used for Romano. The distinctive flavour comes from the bacteria that grow on the surface after the cheese is pressed.

To grow the surface bacteria the cheese needs to be ‘washed’ every day with a watery bacterial solution. After a couple of weeks the surface is meant to grow a sticky orange rind and pong like crazy. Meant to. Unfortunately I forget to do the wash three days out of four, so although the surface is looking a bit strange and has a little bit of fluffy mould growing on it there’s nothing orange yet.

We’ll see how it goes…

Washed rind, where have you been all my life? It’s a traditional style but it seems to me that it’s still underappreciated here in Australia. The first time I remember even trying a washed rind was the Milawa Gold I wrote about last year. And this is my second experience: a washed rind from King Island Dairy known as ‘Stormy’.

I like this cheese a lot. Even more than the Milawa variety. Stormy has a consistent texture and a smooth taste with just a hint of mushrooms, and although it does pong when first unwrapped, the smell doesn’t hang about for too long.

Appearance: Stormy washed rind comes in a circle wrapped in paper and plastic looking similar to a Brie, but with a crinkled rind that’s coloured a dull orange. Inside it’s a warm cream colour, smooth and shiny.

Aroma: This cheese smells, and strongly, especially when first unwrapped. The aroma is a little like compost - earthy and grassy - and although it seems offensive it is at the same time incredibly attractive.

Texture: Soft and smoothly consistent with a slightly chewier outer rind, this cheese begs to be sliced and consumed.

Flavour: Perfection! Not particularly strong - definitely not as strong as the smell suggests - but sweet with a slight bite. Very edible, I bought a wheel of this and shared it with various people over a couple of weeks, and everyone who tried it was delighted.

It’s been a busy season, lots of summer fun and family time, and we had a fantastic Christmas day. The cheese I made went down a treat! The blue and white combo was soft and delicious - quite perfect - and the romano was even better than last time I made it. It had much better texture - a lot closer, still quite crumbly but smoother and easier to cut. not as hard as true romano, more like a cheddar - but I’m not too worried about that… I like cheddar! Served them both on a couple of platters with some grapes, along with a couple of King Island cheeses I bought for the occasion.

Well, Christmas is on its way, and one of the things that I wanted to do this year was make my own cheese platter for Christmas day. To that end I made a romano earlier in the year, and a couple of weeks ago I started a Blue and White combo cheese.

This is a really interesting one, it’s made in much the same way as a normal blue cheese but after the cheeses have been in the mould and dried, they are then dipped in 90 degree water for a few seconds. The heat kills the mould spores near the outside of the cheese, which is then sprayed with a white mould suspension. So once it matures it becomes white one outside, blue in the middle. Marvellous! You can see here in the photo (a couple of weeks since it was made) that the white mould is clearly growing well, and in the deeper holes there’s a hint of the dark blue residing inside. I can’t wait.

Nicole Gilliver is Cheesemaker, Winemaker and Sales Manager for Grandvewe Cheeses, a sheep dairy and cheesery located in Woodbridge, Tasmania. Here she shares some of her passion for sheep, cheese and the dairy industry in Australia.

Nicole, could you please tell us about the history of Grandvewe? Why did you choose to set up in Woodbridge? And why did you choose sheep cheese?

My mother (Diane) and her partner (Alan) arrived in Tasmania in 2001 from Maleny, Queensland, where Alan had a small law practice and Diane grew organic vegetables and milked a few dexter cows for house milk, yoghurt and cheese. The original plan was to set up an organic vineyard with a view to running sheep through the vines during dormancy to keep the weeds down. When Di and Alan embarked on their viticultural journey they were also on the lookout for a challenging new enterprise that could make the sheep earn their way. They also had an unstoppable urge to blaze a trail, to do something a little bit daring. Enter sheep cheese. Di’s research showed that there were only four companies doing sheep’s milk product in Australia. Mum has always preferred looking at new enterprises and doesn’t like doing things that other people have done.

Fortunately or unfortunately the vines actually died. Whilst the planting site was perfect from an aspect and soil profile perspective it was our underestimation of the ferociousness of the winds that ultimately caused the vines to fail. As a result, aside from losing a substantial investment, the sheep cheese concept became our primary focus.

We set up in Woodbridge because it was a village where we all felt ‘at home’ and it has amazing views over the D’Entrecasteaux channel. For no other reason than that. It felt right and that kind of intuition is, foolishly or not, most often the way our family makes life and business decisions.

What are the basic steps to making sheep cheese? Does the process differ from cow’s cheese?

The basic steps to making sheep cheese are no different to any other with a couple of exceptions. Because sheep milk has double the milk solids of cow or goat it is absolutely imperative that rennet levels are revised downwards. Failing to do so would result in a cheese with the texture of a road tyre. This also means that less cultures are used. Sheep milk has twice the fat and protein levels and therefore it has more natural food sources available for cultures to ‘eat’. If the same amount of cultures were used then the result would be hyper activity of the microbiological elements of the cheese creating imbalance at best and horrendous ‘animal like’ flavours at worst.

What are the characteristics of Grandvewe’s sheep cheese? In your opinion, what makes a great cheese?

Grandvewe’s cheese starts with good milk. Our sheep are reared organically and fed on lush Tasmanian pastures which is a defining characteristic of our cheeses. The milk is then gently handled and only batch pastuerised which is kinder on the milk than HTST pasteurisation. This results in a superior cheese based on flavour, texture and complexity.

I believe a great cheese has two things in spades, balance and complexity. Texture is also paramount but often overlooked. At the end of the day a great cheese should, technically, be a combination of all three. Ultimately this is only achievable with the highest quality milk value added at the right time of the season by a cheesemaker who understands the science behind the art. That is the key. Anything else is smoke and mirrors.

Does Grandvewe have a “signature cheese”? Please tell us about it.

If I had to name a signature cheese it would have to be our La Mancha. It is a 12 month old Manchego style made in 6kg wheels periodically (every 2 weeks) oiled with olive oil. It is made for only 3 months of the year during Spring as this is when the milk is thinnest but most abundant which lends itself well to this style. Spring is also when the new grasses express themselves in the milk creating a unique flavour not found at any other stage of the season.

At Grandvewe you also farm and milk the sheep. I understand that there are AQIS (Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service ) regulations around importing and farming that can make it hard to run a sheep farm for milking. Could you please explain how these affect your business?

What this means is that we cannot import the genetic material i.e. livestock, embryos or semen, required to dramatically improve the diabolically poor yields of currently available dairy ewes. This means that we are effectively resigned to yields of 1/4 of the yields of sheep dairies in Europe and other parts of the World which directly affects the sustainability of sheep dairying in this country.

How do you see your future and the future of cheese in Australia as a whole?

I think our future is rosey at the moment. We’re producing and selling more cheese than ever and being cautious and very strategic along the way. Our quality is second to none and that is because we take an awful lot more care of our raw product than most European equivalents. We have researched extensively the fortunes and misfortunes of others who have ventured down the domestic sheep milking track before us and hopefully learned from them. With the prices of conventional dairy ever increasing hopefully the price sensitivity related to domestic sheep milk cheeses will become less of an issue. With yet another sheep milking operation seeking to exit the business we believe it only opens up the market.

Aussie cheesemakers are becoming more and more adventurous seeking less to mimic imported styles instead opting to create styles of their own. This I believe will be fantastic for the industry on a couple of levels.

• It takes out the international competition
• It sets domestic bench marks

The fact of the matter is that, although imports are comparitively cheaper, by and large they are mass produced, machine made, ultra filtered and stabilised. This means that the human element is almost redundant in these cheeses as is the ‘integrity’ of the raw product (milk). Slowly domestic cheesemakers, cheese industry people, chefs and cheese enthusiasts are starting to realise this which ultimately puts pay to the deftness of the Aussie artisanal/farmhouse cheesemaker making the cheaper imports comparitively redundant (obviously in context). The moral of the story is this……… yes imported cheeses are cheaper and there’s a greater variety but Aussie cheesemakers are doing it better and harder and by hand not machine for less returns. They are developing consistantly good product with little help from machinery and have learned their skills in less than 200 years. It’s taken the Europeans a helluva lot longer to perfect their art! Consumers need to understand this and media and industry need to support it.

Learn more about Grandvewe including their selection of sheep cheeses at grandvewe.com.au

The Roaring Forties Blue is a classic blue vein cheese made at the infamous King Island Dairy. This has got to be one of my favourite cheeses, and I’m lucky enough to drive past the Barwon Heads Airport every day on my way home from work so when I need a fix of fresh cheesy goodness I can just drop in. (As an aside, this airport is also a great place to source fresh fish and other seafood.) The old man who serves is great, I’ve forgotten his name but he carves wedges out of the cheese wheels with a long knife and a broad grin. “I love the cheddar,” he says, chewing as he smiles, “Because I get to taste the crumbs while I’m cutting it.”

For this Taste though, it’s the Roaring Forties Blue. The old man doesn’t seem to like it as much, but I think it’s grand.

Appearance: Peel the wax away to reveal a pale, white cheese streaked with glorious veins of dark blue, almost black, mould.

Aroma: Ooh, it’s good. Strong and characteristically blue, the scent is heavy and vaguely smoky.

Texture: Soft, creamy, slightly crumbly. When you take a slice of this you can almost spread it across a biscuit, in your mouth it is moist and delightfully creamy.

Flavour: Strong, but not overly so for a blue vein, this cheese is sweet, smoky and entirely lovable.

If you’re a fan of blue cheeses you’ll definitely love the Roaring Forties Blue!

The north-east of Tasmania is well and truly dairy country, and Pynegana takes full advantage of the plentiful grass and rolling hills to milk their own herd of cattle and create beautiful cheddar cheese.

They craft a range of cheddars, wrapping them in cloth to age them and selling them at different stages - you can buy anything from a mere one month old to the grand daddy that’s been wrapped for 36 months. They also have a dozen or so flavoured cheddars, from the standards like cracked pepper to more interesting flavours of cloves and chilli.

The tasting room also doubles as a large, open cafe and gift shop, where they use the same fresh milk to make the coffee as they do the cheese. Extravagant! And definitely worth a visit.

For this taste I’ve chosen their most popular cheese, the “Traditional Cheddar”, which is aged in cloth for three months.

Appearance: Pale yellow and hard, you can see that it gets harder and slightly discoloured around the edges where it’s been wrapped.

Aroma: Sweet and full. This cheese won’t offend your nostrils but will leave you salivating as you make that first slice and release the aroma within.

Texture: Slightly crumbly, although at this age it’s not too hard and still slices very well. Becomes nicely creamy on your tongue.

Flavour: Mouth-wateringly good. Most of us will be familiar with the sweet-and-sharp properties of cheddar, and this is a very good example of being mid-sharp. It fills your mouth and nostrils with delicious cheddar headiness. But don’t expect too much - if you’re after the real experience go for the supremely aged Grandpa Cheddar.

Grandvewe is a beautiful farmhouse cheesery set in the rolling pastures of Woodbridge, 30 minutes South of Hobart. They milk 120 East Friesland ewes and make over a dozen types of cheese from the sheep milk, including styles like Primavera, Pecorino, Farmhouse Fetta and Cheddar.

Not all the cheeses they produce are traditionally sheep milk. “We thought that if we were going to make a cheddar, we’d have to make it a bit different,” says sales manager Nicole Gilliver, explaining the reasoning behind Grandvewe’s decision to age a sheep milk cheddar without the usual practise of coating it with wax or wrapping it in cloth. The small slice I tried in the farmhouse was pale and tangy but was slightly dry and chewy around the edges - I chose not to buy that one.

Instead, for this taste test I’ve chosen a Pecorino. Pecorino is a traditional Italian sheep cheese that is popular as an eating cheese or grated over pasta or risotto. As well as the standard style, the Grandvewe team make a wine-soaked variety that is much richer and has a deep purple-red stain around the skin.

Appearance: Pale yellow in colour, the surface appears smooth and slightly shiny.

Aroma: A sharp note, strong and salty. Although it is a strong cheese the aroma is very attractive.

Texture: Hard but not crumbly, this cheese is beautifully smooth and cuts nicely as a table cheese. It is hard enough to grate well.

Flavour: Strong, tasty and deliciously sharp with a fruitiness that comes out as it stays in your mouth. You’ll love this cheese on biscuits with something sweet to compliment the flavour, or you could grate it over pasta to add some zing!

As a table cheese you’ll find this very bitey and interesting, and as a specimen of the pecorino style it is marvellous. If you’re going to try something from the Grandvewe range this is my suggestion. Be warned though - at $75 per kilo you don’t want to be eating it too fast!