Quite often we are asked what we will do after finishing waltzing… Maybe we want to make cheese??!!??
Several times we have watched and documented how cheese is made. But we only could watch. At the Fürstenhof in Kuchl in Salzburg Land this is different. Here you can make your own cheese.
There you can join a cheese workshop. We had to try that!!
At the show cheese dairy you find everything you need for producing cheese. Everything is a small model – also the copper cauldron. You get an instruction in writing and all the tools like thermometer, ladle, sieve, matches… Everything is waiting for you.
You need raw milk. Every participant gets around 3 l. Some butter milk is added to acidify the milk a little bit. Just a shot glas full. After that the milk is warmed to 39 C. Therefore you need the matches and the thermometer.
When the milk has reached the right temperature vegetable lab is added. After that you have to wait until the milk is coagulated.
To loosen up the waiting time we got a tour through the farm. At the Fürstenhof they have a special cattle breed: Jersey. After having caressed enough little calves it is time for the cheese dairy again.
The coagulated milk has to be cut into pieces by a cheese harp. The curd, which you get has to be stirred for around 15 minutes. During the stirring you have time enough to talk to the other participants. Quite funny to hear why they joined the cheese course.
When you have stirred enough you can fill the curd into the small sieves. After some time you can turn the tiny cheese wheels. But you have to wait some time for the whey to drip off.
During that time you can enjoy the cheese buffet and try to the heart's content all the variety of cheese, that is made at the organic farm. There are 36 different types of cheese at the time. Soon you don't know which one you have already tried and which one you liked most.
Finally you may carry your three tiny cheese wheels home or to the hotel room for further treatment. They have to drip off for another 24 hours at room temperature and have to be turned once in a while. After that they have to be rubbed with salt and stay cool.
And they may be eaten!
Within 4-5 days you should eat up such a soft cheese like we made. We let other hotel guests try our cheese and contributed one wheel for the breakfast table.
At the end of the workshop we received a certificate which attest us that we know how to make organic cheese. So this would be one thing that we could do subsequent to our waltzing: Make cheese!
