HAVE you ever thought about making your own cheese?
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It is not as hard as you might think.
It does take a little time but the rewards of producing your own fresh cheese are very satisfying.
Cheese making teachers Sue and David Magher from The Cheesemaking Workshop in Sydney spend much of their time travelling around Southern NSW and the ACT conducting single day cheese tasting and making workshops.
The classes are proving very popular and the start of a new culinary hobby for most of the participants.
Participants come from all segments of the community including corporate groups, foodies, farmers and people keen to learn more about traditional food making processes.
Some even have their own milking cows and would like to find ways of using the excess milk that their animals produce.
“You don’t need to be a microbiologist or a chemist to learn these techniques,” Mr Magher said.
“The easiest way is to start out with one of our soft cheese workshops and once you become proficient at making those cheeses you can try a more advanced class.”
Last week 14 local people took part in a soft Cheese making workshop conducted by Sue and David Magher at the 98 Chairs restaurant café in Goulburn.
There experience started at 10am and by lunch time they had some Ricotta and butter ready for use in their cheese inspired lunch.
Also well under way was a camembert each, fetta, Greek style yoghurt with mascarpone and quark to be produced during the afternoon too.
Sheep farmers John and Julie Cordukes said over lunch that the workshop so far had been inspirational and made even more pleasurable by being able to eat the products of their morning’s effort.
Julie said she could certainly see them continuing on with the cheese making, having learnt so much in the session so far.
They were thrilled when they inverted their camemberts for the first time just after lunch.
Mrs Magher said: “The Cheesemaking Workshop takes the mystery out of the centuries old cottage industry food production, often carried on by people without any formal education who had learnt the craft by watching, listening and doing.
“Our workshops are 100 per cent hands on and the emphasis is on having a go, not standing back and just watching someone else do it.
“All the equipment and ingredients plus cultures needed on the day are supplied and participants can purchase all equipment and cultures so they can get started at home making their favourite cheeses.
“Participants and other people interested in making cheeses can order additional equipment and cultures on line.”
This was the first time Sue and David had conducted The Cheesemaking Workshop in Goulburn.
David said they were looking forward to coming back in March next year to run another one.
“Sue and I ran workshops for over 2000 people last year,” he said.
“It is fun to make cheese and sustainable and natural.
When you make your own you know exactly what is going into it and you have the pleasure of surprising friends when they ask where you got your camembert, fetta, or quark from and you can say you made it yourself.
“You can surprise them even more when you produce a blue vein or other varieties you can learn to make in the advanced workshop.”
Jim Huntley, Peter Caucino and Yvonne Aris were all looking forward to the afternoon session as they sipped on locally produced Riesling and savoured the results of the morning session for lunch.