We look forward to welcoming you at The Rare Dairy for a comprehensive, hands on 5 day workshop
with David Asher of The Black Sheep School of Cheesemaking  – see below for all details or download this PDF

Venue: The Rare Dairy at Abbey Farm, Ash, Whitchurch, Shropshire, SY13 4DP
We are the only certified organic, rare breed Shetland Calf-at-Foot Dairy on the British Isles – we really are rare!
Dates and Times 14th – 18th August 2024  10am – 5.30pm each day
Booking and Costs : We have a limited number of places on the course, so please book early to avoid disappointment. The price of the five-day workshop is £675 which includes lunches,  teas & coffees, with pizza on the Friday evening  Please email to book your place and pay by BACS: Abbey Farm Partnership Triodos Bank | 16-58-10 | 21153868
Contact Details :  To to book your place or for more  information  hello@the-rare.co.uk | 07794440075 | @theraredairy

About the workshop:
The workshop explores five main categories of cheese, and concepts of traditional starters, ripening ecologies, and natural rennet, offering a new understanding of cheesemaking even to those with many years of experience – including lifelong commercial producers.

Students can expect to learn how simple  traditional methods can lead to a safe, effective, and delicious raw (or pasteurised) milk cheesemaking; and how the philosophies of fermentation of natural wine, beer, sourdough and dairy are all inter-related. There will also be discussions of the implications of raw
milk cheesemaking for human health, and the complicated ethics of animal  agriculture

Day One
Learn 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 Two
We’ll 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 Three
We look at 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. We also explore the rind ecologies that can transform the fresh cheese into a ripe Camembert

Day Four
We will make Bleu d’Auvergne, a French blue cheese, and explore the cultivation of blue fungus that
gives this cheese its beautiful blue eyes. We will also prepare rennet in the traditional way

Angus D. Birditt, of Our Isles and author of A Portrait of British Cheese, will give a talk on ‘Blue Cheeses of the British & Irish Isles’ on Saturday after class.
Angus is a food writer and photographer and is passionate about cheese making in Britain and keeping alive this important part of our culinary and agricultural heritage.

Day Five
On 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. We explore the concepts of rind washing and how it influences the hard cheese’s evolution. With the leftover whey, we prepare a batch of traditional ricotta