About Pevensey Blue cheese
Milk
We are very lucky to be working with Court Lodge Farm, Organic milk producers whose herd grazes the Pevensey Levels – a National Nature Reserve.
Their herd is utilised by the Wildlife Trust to manage the Levels habitat through conservation grazing.
Marian and David are keen wildlife lovers so sustainability and encouragement of biodiversity are integral to their farming system, as well as the wellbeing of their cows.
They do not use any herbicides, insecticides or fungicides - and no artificial fertilizers - only the manure from their cows. Their farm is a haven for wildlife and provides homes for many plants, insects, bees, birds, mammals and invertebrates (including some rare ones!). Marian and David love to see their land as a beautiful flourishing eco-system so they aim to work in balance with nature.
The milk changes throughout the seasons depending on the weather and the herds’ choice of grazing on that particular day. It is therefore a privilege for us to be able to collect the milk fresh for ourselves each morning that we make cheese, knowing how much care and attention has gone into our raw and most important material.
How we make it
Pevensey Blue is made by hand, throughout the year in small 60kg batches – which amounts to 21 cheeses at a time. We collect fresh milk from the morning milking and transport it to our cheese make room five minutes from the cows.
We make three to four days a week – which is about as much as we can handle right now! Each time we collect the fresh milk at the parlour first thing and then pasteurise it as soon as it enters the make room. After that the milk is cooled for our cultures to begin fermenting the milk, then rennet is added and then left to solidify the milk. The curd is then cut in three stages, stirred very gently for three to four hours until the right acidity and texture is reached and then scooped into circular cheese forms. The cheeses are turned every 20 minutes to make sure they have a nice even shape and then left to drain overnight.
The next day we salt the cheese and drain for another 24 hours. We pierce each cheese at the end of week 1 and 2 and keep it for 12 weeks in our maturing room to develop a nice rind, encourage blue mould to grow and for the ripening yeasts, moulds and bacteria to do their work.
