The Dairy Seminar is scheduled for 6 March 2012. It enables artisan cheese makers to exchange experiences, network and learn more about the art and business of cheesemaking.

Program:

09.00 Farmhouse cheese maker visit at Simon Weaver Cotswold Organic Dairy Upper Slaughter, Gloucestershire

12.00 The Ludlow Food Centre. Viewing of the dairy and shop, lunch and seminar.

Speakers:

Tom Hunt, Marketing Manager Ludlow Food Centre, will explain the thoughts behind this unique enterprise.

Wolfgang Pachschwöll of Hundsbichler GmbH will talk about Natural Rennet. Natural rennet is regaining acceptance. Hear why and what it can mean for you.

Michelle Mills-Porter of Ethos Development will talk about how small businesses, like Artisan Cheese makers, can harness the internet and develop their business.

Booking :

• Cost for the day, including lunch and VAT.: £35 pp.
  
• Click here for further information.

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Small scale processing of milk into cheese and other dairy products is expensive and a solution developed in Germany may offer an option for small scale manufacturers. The mobile dairy pictured below might offer a less expensive option for processing small volumes of milk.

 

There are some eight mobile dairies in trailers driving around Germany. They are shared between a numbers of cheesemakers who use the mobile dairies to process their milk. When this has been done the dairy moves on to another small scale processor.

A typical dairy supplied by Jongia contains:

- 2 x 650 L cheese vats complete with a planet agitator, with curd cutting knives.

- CIP

- drainage table/pre-press

- Sink

- 35 kW gas boiler for cheese vat heating and warm water supply.

An internal view of a typical mobile dairy is shown below.

These mobile dairies are marketed at two main groups:

· entrepreneurs who can serve a number of farmers e.g. goat milk producers who have insufficient milk volume to justify an individual investment in a dairy. Farmers accumulate sufficient milk for processing over a 2-3  day period  and pay the entrepreneur for the service.

· farmer cooperatives. Here individual farmers invest in a mobile dairy and share the facilities with others.

There are some obvious biosecurity issues but these seem to have been resolved in Germany. The concept is an interesting one and may also have application in farm diversification projects where the mobile equipment could be used to teach product manufacture as an initial stage in the development of on farm milk processing business.

 

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Applications are invited for a Veterinary adviser for the Central Region Milk Producer's Association (CREMPA), in Lilongwe, Malawi for 24 months and a Dairy Production Manager, Individual Entrepreneur (IE) Muminov, Soughd, Northern Tajikistan for 8 months.

Information is available on the Dairy Science and Food Technology jobs page.

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The Austrian dairy  Sonnenalm Bäuerlicher Milchhof e.Gen. working in cooperation with the European dairy-equipment manufacturer ASTA-eismann has developed an innovative, unique and low cost approach to teaching cheesemaking, called , “table cheese making”.

Cheese making equipment is expensive and learning the skills of cheesemaking takes practice and can be expensive. Hence this small scale, low cost manufacturing approach has potential to enable the teaching of cheesemaking and its associated science and technology to be taught inexpensively in a wide range of locations globally.

Sonnenalm Bäuerlicher Milchhof e.Gen has purchased a 50 litre vat (figure 1) which can be used as a milk holding tank or as a cheese vat and a number of 4 litre cheese vats. Both vats come with a range of stirring and cutting equipment; cheese moulds are also supplied.

A close up of the vat is given in figure 2.

Each small vat is mounted on a table (figure 3) and is typically managed by two people; about 4 x 100 grams of soft cheese are produced from each vat.

The dairy has been operating the kaese schulke since  April 2011.  Costs for a basic 4-hour class, are shown below:

Adult pupils/students Old age pensioners- and school groups Sonnenalm-customers

€ 29 € 25 € 25 € 10.

The Sonnenalm Bäuerlicher Milchhof e.Gen web site has a range of pictures showing school pupils making cheese. A selection of images, shown below has been downloaded from the site.

Image downloaded from the Sonnenalm Bäuerlicher Milchhof e.Gen web site.

Image downloaded from the Sonnenalm Bäuerlicher Milchhof e.Gen web site.

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As mentioned in a forum post there is some scientific debate about the nutritional benefits of reducing salt in food. Recent work* with rats by Professor Micah Leshem, a psychologist at the University of Haifa, Israel suggests that salt (sodium chloride) may have an anti-anxiety (anxiogenic) effect and has speculated on why people like salty foods. While rats are obviously a long way from people this research will be interesting from several respects, not just  to people suffering from anxiety and depression, regarding any application (if any) to humans.

Professor Leshem's paper can be accessed On Line.

*Leshem, M. (2011) Low dietary sodium is anxiogenic in rats. Physiology and Behavior, 103, 453-458.

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Jongia UK Ltd are arranging trips to cheesemakers in the UK and Germany later this year.

 

Germany
3-5 October Bavaria/Austria
11 October Berlin
18+19 October Westphalia

UK
25 October Midlands
26 October South England

 

For further information please contact jaap@jongiauk.com.

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Small scale ice cream or gelato manufacturers sometimes use whole milk powder (WMP) and cream  in their ice cream mixes. In Vietnam and other Asian countries ice cream is frequently made from whole milk powder and cream. To the best of my knowledge there has been no information published on how to calculate the weights of cream and whole milk powder required to make ice cream mixes to a product specification.

A tutorial explaining the calculations required to determine the weight of  cream and WMP in ice cream mixes was added on the 20th May 2011.

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