A Week on the Estate: New Cheese, Winter Wheat & Green Skills

Last week, the new Massingberd-Mundy Creamery’s very first cheese made its debut at the International Cheese Awards in Staffordshire. The experts found the shape and texture pleasing and – like us – they’re looking forward to tasting it when it’s fully matured.

“We’re making a cheese that represents the values of South Ormsby Estate,” said Creamery Operator, Mark Vines. “We only use Lincoln Red milk from spring and summer so that you can taste the freshness of the pasture. It’s been made slowly, patiently and as sustainably as possible. In fact, it’s still maturing at six months and counting.

“Our cheese is in the Tomme class, a hard, upland cheese usually associated with the French and Swiss Alps. We’re working to a maturation period of six months or longer. Large rounds up to 5kg can age for a long time and keep a pleasing texture.

“This year has been all about finding out what we can do with our cheese. It’s been a refinement phase and the quantity is strictly limited. Careful tasting is the next phase and we certainly don’t want to be snacking on it! Next year, we’ll be milking more cows and producing more cheese.

“We’re aiming for a classic Tomme – a tangy, rich, creamy hard cheese. This is a pure, raw-milk cheese – the milk is raw, pasture-fed and non-pasteurised. When cheese is pasteurised, the bacteria and fungi that create flavour and character have to be added back in. We’ve made our cheese flavourful because it retains its own natural bacteria and fungi.

“In the milking process, we come second – the cow feeds the calf and we get the rest. Lincoln Red milk has a higher fat content, giving us more cream than we’d get from a typical commercial milk. This will make the finished cheese rich and creamy for its class.

“There’s a surprisingly big proportion of whey to milk. To accentuate the taste, we used an old-fashioned, traditional salting technique. We soaked the cheese in a brine derived from pure whey from the original milk.

“What goes into the cow definitely comes out in the cheese. Pastured, unstressed and free-grazing cows make for a pure, delicious, raw-milk cheese. There are no shortcuts and we’re investing a lot of time to finesse the process. You have to balance sour milk with fresh milk, get the enzymes to work, and tweak the temperature and humidity to mature the finished cheese into the right taste and texture.

“I know we’re all looking forward to tasting our debut cheese, and we can’t wait to share it with our customers. It’s going to be very special.”

Watch this space for more exciting news from the Massingberd-Mundy Creamery. To read Mark’s fascinating story of farming, soldiering and cheffing, click HERE.

Are you a cheese-lover? What do you look for in a fine, memorable cheese? How do you think ours will taste? Just head to our Facebook page HERE and comment beneath the post that linked you to this blog. We’d love to hear from you and, as ever, thanks for your support.

Don’t forget, we’re offering 15% off Massingberd-Mundy products until 31st October, including Pumpkin Spice Gin, free-range Christmas turkeys and chickens, and roasting beef joints. Pre-order now for collection or local delivery. Enter code XMAS15 at checkout to claim your 15% discount.