Perry's Cheese Blog — Cheese Making

A visit to Norfolk to catch up with cheesemaker Julie Cheyney at her new St. Jude Cheese dairy. We talk about her 20 years in cheese, her new home, and how the Norfolk milk is shaping the next chapter for St Jude, St Cera and St Helena.

I spent a morning at Village Maid Cheese with Jake and the team, tasting fresh curd and talking all things British artisan cheese. We saw Heckfield being made and revisited two favourites, Spenwood and Wigmore. A proper good visit.

Locally-made food is becoming increasingly clamoured for. With the same old industrially-made cheeses on supermarket shelves, food lovers are looking towards more esoteric varieties that come from independent farms. We’d pull up a statistic or study to prove our point, but the simple fact that we’ve been able to open up a Rennet and Rind brick-and-mortar shop and still have it going strong after 6 months is indicative of a demand for authentic quality produce from smaller farms.   With local produce becoming a more important part of our shopping habits, why should we be choosing British cheese, over its...

Personality oozes out of every artisan cheese, and there's a magical element that sets each piece apart, telling a tale not just of its maker but of its homeland. This element is terroir, a French term that means "A Sense of Place." At Rennet and Rind, we’ve lifted the curtain on how artisan cheese is made in our partner farms, and now we’re going to examine how the location and circumstances of a farm can contribute directly to its fromage produce, and it all comes down to terroir. Terroir is often discussed in the context of other fine foods and...

Rennet is a set of enzymes used in cheesemaking to coagulate milk, splitting it into solid curds and liquid whey. The key enzyme, chymosin, is traditionally sourced from the stomach lining of young calves, lambs or goats, though vegetarian-friendly microbial and plant-based rennets are now widely used. When it comes to cheese production, rennet is a crucial ingredient that plays a vital role in the coagulation process. Rennet is an enzyme responsible for causing the milk to coagulate and turn into junket, which is cut, and then separated into curds and whey. A vital part of cheese making cheese. With...