Weekly Meeting - Artisan Cheese Making (Lorraine Bradley)

Artisan Cheese Making (Lorraine Bradley)

Our meeting this evening was enlivened by the bubbly personality of Lorraine Bradley who was to tell us about the skills of artisan cheese-making.   

Lorraine works at Godsell’s Farm, one of those that were devastated by the foot and mouth epidemic of 2001.  Following that disaster it was deemed necessary to diversify, so today the dairy farm runs over 180 cows (of a ‘black and white’ breed) in Leonards Stanley interspersed with a few Cotswold Cows to warrant and justify using the protected sobriquet of Gloucestershire Cheese on some of the many varieties that they produce. 

We learnt that Single Gloucester cheese has milk and cream from a single day milking whilst Double Gloucester has cream from two consecutive days’ milking. 

Gloucester Cheese can only be produced in the County and must contain milk from the specific breed of Gloucestershire cows.  Today it is only produced by five companies. 

Lorraine knew every aspect of producing hand-crafted artisan cheese having performed all of the many tasks involved including selecting and testing the milk, monitoring the temperature requirements of a particular batch, curdling the milk with rennet, milling the curds, and weighing and ensuring that the necessary salt is evenly distributed throughout the batch.  

The curds are then pressed into Circles (or was it wheels?) to separate out the curds from the whey.  The Circles are then wrapped in cheese cloths and stored in the maturing rooms, which are temperature and humidity controlled in accordance with the variety of cheese being produced. 

Skilfully selecting the milk, controlling the cream and moisture content, colourant, and conditions during the maturation time determines whether a cheese will be crumbly, soft, hard or creamy.  Lesser quality milk is used for producing flavoured cheeses like their Coccadilli Chilli.  However Holy Smoked, Godsell’s smoked cheese, is genuinely produced by being exposed to burning oak and beech logs, unlike some mass-produced versions that just use flavourings.  

Not content to be just an expert in producing the cheeses Lorraine is the chief ‘taster’ and controls when each batch is ready for marketing.  She then supervises the packaging and selling to selected outlets, farmers’ markets, as well as to Gloucester Services on the M5. 

A lively, informative and very interesting evening ended by Lorraine being besieged by Rotarians clamouring to purchase some of the several varieties of vacuum-packed cheese Lorraine had wisely brought with her. 

Roger Hart