Mudgee Farmstead Cheese-Making

The goats at Leaning Oak Dairy, Mudgee, NSW

The goats lined up for milking at Leaning Oak Dairy, Mudgee, NSW

It’s not every day I hold a warm newborn baby kid in my arms.  And it’s not every day I’m asked to squeeze the soft full udder of an Anglo-Nubian goat and express its milk. But then I’m not a goat farmer. I do, however, love soft goat cheeses and jumped at the opportunity to learn how to make camembert and blue cheese at a cheese-making class held last week in Mudgee, NSW, with three other women. We’d been asked to arrive at 9am at Leaning Oak Dairy with two pairs of shoes (one clean and comfortable for the cooking part, and an old pair for wearing in the dairy); an apron and an empty 2 litre container to carry the cheese we made in the class home with us. Leaning Oak’s cheesemaker, Gloria Cox, greeted us at the cellar door, a spacious country- style mud brick building overlooking a pretty dam.  After a brief introduction, we were taken outside to the dairy to meet the goats and try our hand at milking them. Ten of them were lined up in a row, some with their udders attached to a milking machine, others ready to be hand-milked.  Gloria showed us how to hold and squeeze the teets so that the milk came out in a strong steady spurt. “Farmstead means we make our fresh, ripened, and aged cheeses by hand, right on our farm, using only the milk of our own herd,” she says. “The skills you learn during this workshop you can take home with you and make your own cheese from cow, goat, or sheep milk.” Gloria and her husband Alan have 30 goats and 50 sheep at the dairy, though only half the sheep are used for milking.  There are two breeds of goats: white Saanen and Anglo-Nubian, which have beautiful black, brown and white markings. “The Anglo-Nubians produce very creamy milk, though they’re not year round milkers whereas the Saanens produce loads of milk all year round which isn’t as creamy,” she explains. “We’ve had a lot of rain recently and the fields are full of spring flowers so the milk is sweet and fragrant.” After a change of shoes, it was into the warm steamy cheese room to start the process of cheese-making. “Hygiene is of the utmost importance,” explains Gloria. ” We don’t want any mud or dirt from the dairy in here which is why we ask you to bring a second pair of shoes, and it’s necessary to wear a hair hat to prevent any goat or human hair falling into the milk.” We’re divided into teams and each given 10 litres of fresh milk which needs to be pasteurised (heated to 68degC and held for two minutes), and a starter added to convert the lactose in the milk to lactic acid. “If you overheat the milk, it will split or won’t set,” she tells us. We are given a sterilised digital thermometer which is clipped to the side of the milk pan. This is an essential piece of equipment in cheese-making, as are sterile disposable gloves, an accurate timer (mostly set at two minutes), a double boiler, measuring jug, syringe (for inoculating the milk with calcium and rennet), stainless steel spoon and knife (for stirring and cutting the curd), boiling water or Milton(for sterilising),  cheese hoops or moulds, cheesecloth – and a warm steamy room with a tub or basin.  A notebook is also handy so that you can make notes and keep tabs on where you’re up to. “The cheese making environment is one where bacteria is encouraged to grow,” says Gloria.  “Therefore any bad bacteria or other organisms are going to grow as well as the good bacteria that are being encouraged, so it’s important to ensure that all the equipment is sterilised.” Once you start the process, you can’t turn back. We were there for seven hours, with breaks for morning tea, and for lunch outside on the deck overlooking the dam. But even during lunch, we had to return every ten minutes to cut and stir the curd – and once the curd had been transferred into hoops, it still required turning and inverting another four or five times, being left to drain overnight then soaked in a brine solution, turning again, draining, drying and turning every third day (the process is slightly different for the blue cheese which requires the addition of a blue mould, probing with a stainless steel probe to allow the mould to flourish inside – and sprinkling all over with salt). “At about day seven, you will see the bloom commence,” says Gloria. “You then need to wrap it in foil and keep for another 14 days in the fridge.” It reminded me of attending to a newborn baby. I loved the smell of the warm sweet milk and seeing the way it was transformed into something delicious and edible . True alchemy. Now I can’t wait for my two little babies to bloom and ripen. Contact Gloria Cox at Leaning Oak on 02 6373 3814 or 0420 744 810.  Classes are $165 per person. www.leaningoak.com.au/cheese-making-workshops.php Mudgee is a four hour drive from Sydney. For Goat’s cheese-making classes in North Sydney, call Karen Borg at Willowbrae Cheese: Ph. 45751077 (Willowbrae goat’s farm is in the Hawkesbury Valley, close to Sydney).
Here I am milking the goats

Here I am milking the goats