As cheesemakers at The Ethical Dairy, we know our place in the pecking order - we're behind the calves, and rightly so. With two calving blocks each year, both bringing five months of suckling, that's a lot of milk that on other farms would go straight into cheesemaking. Here, it goes to the calf.
With a herd of more than 100 cows, there's still plenty of milk to share, but it's not just about quantity. The presence of the calves, and the mother's willingness to let down her milk, means that yields and milk composition vary throughout the year in ways that keep us constantly on our toes.
A cow's innate ability to hold back the creamier hind milk for her calf impacts the fat content of the milk, which is something that us cheese makers need to work around. This is heightened at certain times of year, especially late winter and early spring, when we make our ‘skinny’ cheeses, those which are best suited to lower-butterfat milk.
But managing fluctuating butterfat is a year-round puzzle. Fat content is crucial to both flavour and texture so getting it right, or learning to compensate when it dips, is at the heart of good cheesemaking. We're constantly adjusting, experimenting, and waiting to see whether changes we've introduced will produce beneficial results. Patience is part of the craft.
While we always strive for consistency, the changeable Dumfries & Galloway weather and the varied nature of Rainton's organic pasture can make that a challenge at the best of times. Keeping the calves with their mothers adds another layer of complexity on top of all of that which ensures that no two batches of cheese are ever quite the same.
We've made peace with that. More than that, we've come to see it as something worth celebrating.
Like all raw milk cheesemakers, we're not working with a sterile product. We're part of a living ecosystem that starts in the fields and runs all the way through to our cheese stores. That brings challenges, but it also brings something you can't manufacture: character. Being able to create good quality cheese that showcases our very special way of farming is why we're here, and we wouldn't want it any other way.
By Kevin McGrother, Cheesemaker