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Introduction to Natural Cheesemaking with David Asher
Event Date:
July 10, 2023
Event Time:
9:00 am
Event Location:
Ballymaloe Cookery School, Organic Farm and Gardens
NOTS are delighted to be partnering with Ballymaloe Cookery School to part-fund an exciting 5-day course – Introduction to Natural Cheesemaking with David Asher this coming July.
From July 10th – 14th, join cheesemaker David Asher of The Black Sheep School of Cheesemaking for this comprehensive, five-day introduction to natural cheesemaking.
During this five-day course, he will cover many aspects of natural farmhouse cheesemaking, from culture propagation to rennet coagulation and affinage, the art of aging cheese.
Course Information:
- Dates: Monday July 10th – Friday July 14th, 2023
- Time: 9.00am to 5.00pm each day
- Venue: Ballymaloe Cookery School, Organic Farm and Gardens, Shanagarry, Co Cork
- Trainer: David Asher
- Cost: €600 when you sign up through NOTS. This is a massive €295 reduction on the full course price
- Eligibility for Funding: Participants can only pay the reduced rate of €600 through NOTS if they fulfill both of our eligibility criteria
- Participant must be resident in Ireland, and
- Participant must be employed or self-employed in any sector (this includes part time workers)
Students can expect to learn how simple traditional methods can lead to safe, effective, and delicious cheesemaking, using raw or pasteurised milk. This course is mainly in a demonstration format as David will show students how to make several types of cheese. There may be some small amounts of hands on sessions.
- Day 1: David will teach you how to create and care for the cultures of your cheese. We begin with a session on dairy fermentation, covering clabber, kefir, amasi (an African milk beer) and a traditional cream-top yogurt.
- Day 2: David will use the cultures and rennet to make fresh lactic cheeses such as cream cheese, chevre and faisselle as well as geotrichum candidum ripened French lactic goat cheeses including crottin, Valençay and Saint-Marcellin.
- Day 3: Focus on rennet cheeses, preparing – in the morning – the basic curd that can become many different styles of cheese. By the afternoon, the curd’s acidity will have developed, and we’ll be able to stretch the cheese into Mozzarella, Queso Oaxaca and Burrata. He also explores the rind ecologies that can transform the fresh cheese into a ripe Camembert.
- Day 4: David will make Bleu d’Auvergne, a French blue cheese, and explore the cultivation of blue fungus that gives this cheese its beautiful blue eyes. On this day, he will also prepare rennet in the traditional way.
- Day 5: Our final day, we make an Alpine cheese, and see how this one cheesemaking method can evolve in many different directions including Tomme and Raclette.
For more information, go to the course page on the Ballymaloe website HERE: – If you have any queries about funding, contact us here at info@nots.ie or call us on 071 9640688