Every Monday morning, Walter gets up at 4:30 am to get ready for his Gouda cheesemaking day. First he checks upon the 800 gallons of milk, fresh delivered from a nearby dairy the evening before. Then he starts up the pasteurizer. At 7:30 he pumps the 80 F milk into the vat. He adds the cheesemaking ingredients rennet and culture(or starter or bacteria). Some annatto coloring (extract from the annatto plant) goes in it too.
After one and a half hour of stirring and draining parts of the whey off, the curds are ready to be pushed together into one big block. By this time he might have some onlookers too, since the store opens at 9:00 am. People just love to see other people work, we found out. And it’s true, making something so old and honest as cheese from scratch is a very fulfilling and rewarding job, which is exciting to watch.
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At 9:30 am Walter gets a half hour break, since the curds have to "rest" during that time. Breakfast time for the big Cheese head! At 10:00 am he is back cutting the curds into 10 lbs. squares. |
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