Grandvewe Blue by Ewe

The people at Grandvewe must have a sense of humour going by their choice of names for their various cheeses - take for example this one, Blue By Ewe

Cheese Maker: Grandvewe Cheese
Cheese Name: Blue By Ewe
Location: 59 Devlyns Road, Birchs Bay Tasmania
Open:
September - June: 10am-5pm, 7 days excluding Christmas day
July - August: 10am-4pm daily except Tuesdays

Blue By Ewe is a Roquefort style cheese made using penicillium roqueforti and is hand salted with Murray River salt.

There's a good degree of marbling - deep green in colour.

It is a bit crumbly but not at all dry. The sheep milk brings a sweetness to the flavour - pleasantly creamy with a delicious tang.


Originally published on here

Meredith Dairy Woodburne

Meredith Dairy is a sheep and goat farm situated in South-western Victoria that has been producing cheese since the early 90's. Their aim is to produce "farmhouse" style cheese using both French techniques and cultures.

Cheese: Meredith Dairy Woodburne
Cheese Maker: Meredith Dairy
Location: Camerons Road, Meredith

Woodburne is made in a French farmhouse style (Camembert) - it is a white mould, surface ripened cheese. It is sold at between 2 and 4 weeks of age and reaches full maturation at 8 weeks. You'll find that as it matures the flavours will develop and the interior will break down into that gorgeous runny ooze that is so loved.

With this particular cheese you can see the cheese closed to the rind has begun to break down - this is still 2 weeks away from reaching full ripeness. It also hasn't been out of the fridge for too long so you will see, as it comes up to room temperature that it will tend to become runnier.

There is a lovely sweet creaminess to the cheese with an appealing bite found in the rind.

I sourced this cheese from Leo's in Kew but I've also read that Meredith Dairy can be found in the US - it is available by special order.


Originally published here

Grandvewe Ewe Bewety

To celebrate Australia Day we'll be kicking back, watching the cricket and enjoying some good Australia Cheese and I found one that is just perfect for the day. Made by Tasmania's Grandvewe it is called...



Ewe Bewety!

When I saw the name I just cracked up - Australians and those that understand our vernacular should get a chuckle out of it - other people will just look at you strangely.

Ewe Bewety (You Beauty) is a vine wrapped sheep milk cheese - the sticker on the packet helpfully tells us that the moulds are normal and part of the maturation process. There's a pleasant smell of damp vine leaf - nothing overpowering in the aromas. It is about 9 days from peak maturation so I would imagine the moulding would envelope more of the external leaf as time passed.

To slice, it is a firm cheese, and you should be able to see a lighter coloured core around the centre of the cheese. This is a visually representation of the maturation process as cheese matures from the outside in.

We found the cheese to be quite creamy with a pleasant bite that you would associate with a blue or a vintage cheddar. It's best eaten without the vine leaf. We were most impressed with this cheese and it will certainly be on our cheese board again.

For those in Melbourne, this was found at Leo's Kew.

The details:
Cheese Maker: Grandvewe Cheese
Cheese Name: Ewe Bewety
Location: 59 Devlyns Road, Birchs Bay Tasmania
Open:
September - June: 10am-5pm, 7 days excluding Christmas day
July - August: 10am-4pm daily except Tuesdays
Web


Originally published here

Grandvewe Primavera

Time for another cheese - this time I'm featuring another sheeps milk cheese from Tasmanian Dairy, Grandvewe

Cheese Maker: Grandvewe Cheese
Cheese Type: Primavera
Location: 59 Devlyns Road, Birchs Bay Tasmania
Open:
September - June: 10am-5pm, 7 days excluding Christmas day
July - August: 10am-4pm daily except Tuesdays

Primavera is made in a Manchego style. Only milk from Spring is used to make this cheese and it's matured between 2 and 8 months.

Primavera is a semi-firm cheese, it won't crumble when cut but it's soft enough to be broken into pieces by hand. Creamy in the mouth with that typical sweet sheep milk characters. It is not a sharply flavoured cheese and is fairly mild - it is very pleasant to eat just on its own.


Originally published here

Island Pure Haloumi

For this next cheese, we take a visit to South Australia and in particular to one it's most well known islands, Kangaroo Island. Here we'll find Island Pure, started in 1992, it was South Australia's first sheep diary.

Cheese Maker: Island Pure
Cheese Type: Haloumi
Location: Gum Creek Road, Cygnet River
Open: Daily 1-5pm

Haloumi is a traditional sheeps' milk cheese of Cyprus. During its manufacture it's actually cooked in its own whey. This results in a cheese that won't melt when heated.

It's most usually served grilled or fried and when you bite into it, it squeaks against your teeth.

There's a bit of liquid in the package to keep the cheese moist so you'll need dry it off on paper towels before using it. The little green specks are just mint fragments.

Typically, you'll cut the cheese evenly into ½ to 1cm thick slices and if you were pan frying, dust the cheese lightly with a little flour to help get a wonderful crispy crust. If you were grilling, rub a little olive oil on the slices before placing them on the grill.

I found it to be mildly salted - haloumi can have a tendency to be a touch on the salty side, I found this to be quite pleasant and good enough to eat as is.

Originally published here