Maighread on a visit to the Gruyère maturing house (outfit models own)

It takes about 12 litres of milk to make 1 kilo of Gruyère.
Milk from the night milking and that of the morning  milking are put into a copper lined vat and a cultured starter is added.
Rennet is added and the milk is left to sit for between 35-40 mins.
The milk is now formed into curd, and this is cut with a cheese ‘harp’ so that the curd is in small pieces about the size of a grain of wheat. (This takes about 10 mins).
You now have a mixture of curds and whey – which are heated slowly to about 55 C.  (This takes about 40-45 mins)
The curds are now taken out of the vat and put into moulds.
The newly moulded cheeses are then put into a press for 24 hours and have between 300 and 900 kilograms of pressure applied.
Finally the cheese is put into a salt brine bath.
After brining the cheese transferred to a maturation room which is between 12-14 C, and the cheeses are initially ‘washed’ with a salt water solution and turned everyday.

Cheeses

We have the following cheeses:

Gruyere Vieux, Gruyere Alpage, Emmentaler 10 and 17mth, L'Etivaz, Sbrinz, Bergblumenchas, Andeerer Bergkase, St Galler Berghof, Raclette Berghof, Alp Raclette, Jura Erguel, Rubloz, Le Sousbois, Tomme Fleurette, Unterwasser.......some are seasonal so not all cheeses are available all year round.

New Arrival 

For the past two months we have been selling a new Alp Bergkase (summer 2008 production) from near Chur (Nth East). Each year the farmers on the alp hire a cheesemaker to work for the summer season and they follow the cows as they go higher up the alp as the summer progresses. The current cheesemaker seems to have done a great job as the cheeses have a good flavour. We will probably run out of cheese about September, so it's strictly a seasonal cheese, - which makes it special.  

Double Cream Bergkase is back...

Arriving around September is the double cream Bergkase we started with last year. I have reserved an ongoing amount from the cheesemaker to be matured for us so hopefully this year we will have plenty to sell.

Etivaz

We have selected a producer from Etivaz to supply us with cheese after a visit to the maturing rooms of Etivaz in mid May to taste through cheeses from a range of cheesemakers.  Update:  I've just put in the order for cheeses made in the summer 2008. We are going to stick with the same cheesemaker again because we were all very happy with the flavour of the current cheeses. These cheeses will be on sale from September 2009.

Gruyère Alpage

We are no longer selling 2007 Alpage cheeses as we sold out. The new 2008 production will be available in early summer 2009.

The cheeses were made during the summer 2008 in the pre-alpes of the Fribourg region, which are at over 1200m.
It's not just a cheese but near to an art-work.  In the small chalets every cheesemaker produces just 2-3 cheeses per day.  The reason for the difference in flavours from other Gruyère are the pastures in the mountains of the Fribourg area, the making over an open wooden fire, the location of the cheesemakers living quarters close to the cows, and of course the passion of the cheesemakers themselves. 

We select from the production of two different cheesemakers.

Fondue Vite

Fondue Vite is just a combination of cheese, wine, and kirsch in one bag, - so you can just pour it into your Fondue pot and then start heating and stirring, (It doesn't exactly pour because it's bit chunky!).  We have just taken away the need to grate your own cheese and work out the right combination of wine/kirsch/cheese.

It's quite common in Switzerland, and there is even some being sold in England but we have ensured that we have used very good quality cheese (and lots of it), and nothing extra in terms of preservatives or additives.

Konrad, from Chas & Co - Zurich, says our Fondue Vite compares to normal 'ready made' fondue, as Caviar compares to plain fish eggs.

I will put up some photos of it soon...

Thanks also to Jonathon Hares for the design of the label.