Why Now is the Time to Create Cheese for Christmas

Hidden away at our farm in Derbyshire, we’re always hard at work producing the best artisan cheese in the UK. From award-winning stilton to returning favourites like our traditional Derby cheese, the vats are rarely empty, and our storage room is full to the rafters.

This time of year, meaning late September/early October, we start to prepare our cheese for Christmas. Most people are trying to think about anything but Christmas this time of year, but as the season fast approaches, we need to be ready.

Christmas is a demanding time for us, thanks to an explosion in cheese gift hamper orders that we need to fulfil. So today we’re going to share some insight into the process of making our cheese, and why we’ve started work so early.

 

How is Cheese Made?

Unlike sausages, it’s worth knowing how cheese is made. It’s a much more complicated process than many people realise, especially since we only use traditional methods to ensure higher quality than our competitors.

We’re planning a blog that goes into a lot more detail about the process of making cheese, so stay tuned for that, but for now here’s the abridged version.

First, our 300 cows are milked. They spend all day roaming the stunning vistas of Derbyshire, feeding well to make the milk high quality. That milk is then pumped into our vats for pasteurisation. In factories, these vats are as large as possible to ensure the highest yield, but we use smaller vats for our specialist cheese so the proper care can be taken throughout the process.

As the milk is heated, we stir it by hand at set intervals, using our wealth of experience to know if more or less stirring is necessary, as this changes based on the cheese we’re making for that batch.

Cheese that is knocked around or is stirred too much loses a lot of its creaminess, which is why factory-produced cheese can’t match the flavours we ship out to our customers.

As the milk is heated, we add the necessary starter cultures and rennet that make the different cheeses. Then, once the curds are formed, they’re cut, placed in moulds, and taken into storage to drain the moisture.

 

The Importance of Storing Cheese

When our cheese moulds are first placed in storage, they sit on shelves so that the moisture can slowly drain out of them. This is the traditional method, doing it manually affects the flavour. After a couple of turns to ensure equal distribution of moisture, the cheese is ready to be aged.

Unlike when you accidentally leave the milk out of the fridge after making a cup of tea, ‘going off’ is the goal with cheese. When the conditions are right, safe, edible mould starts to grow at different rates depending on the cultures we added. This is what determines what becomes blue cheese and which stay white, with individual differences between each category.

For example, our Devonshire Gold cheese has distinct blue veins whereas our Sage Derby only has a smattering of dots of mould to add to the flavour. The way cheese looks is almost as important as the flavour; we want to do our part, so your cheese board is as stunning as it deserves to be.

 

Why Cheese needs Ageing

Like all the best things in life, cheese gets better with age. If you want a cheese that crumbles to the touch but still melts in the mouth, it has to be aged with precision. After over a century of making cheese, there’s no guesswork needed at Hartington Creamery. We’ve got it down to an exact science, bringing out the most amount of flavour by ageing our cheese within a day of the optimum time.

This is trickier than it may seem. Mould is a living thing; it doesn’t grow in the same way on every cheese. But we can at least make sure it grows at a healthy rate, but doesn’t overpower what makes the cheese flavourful.

Sharpness, tartness, tanginess, and texture are all determined by the ageing process. Once the cheese has been aged, we wrap it up and place it in storage so no more mould can grow, and it stays nice and fresh until it’s time to ship it out. Even the way we wrap our cheese is traditional, using our biodegradable wrap instead of plastic so the cheese isn’t suffocated.

This is why we’ve started creating cheese that’s intended to ship out for Christmas. There will be a lot of orders to fill, and the cheese needs to be aged in time, so we’re working around the clock to ensure there’s plenty to go around when the festivities start.

But it’s not just us that needs to plan early.

 

Cheese Hampers for Christmas

As we talked about a couple of weeks ago, a cheese hamper is a fantastic gift idea for your loved ones. You can customise the cheese you include, and they’ll be paired with wine, port, or ale, along with our locally sourced chutneys and delicious biscuits.

But if this sounds like the perfect gift, don’t wait too long! There will be a lot of demand for our hampers this Christmas, and although we’re producing as much as possible, there may be a couple of our artisan cheeses that sell out.

Please note that our pre-orders for Christmas cheese and gift deliveries begin in October. This will ensure you receive the longer dates, as blue cheese is only legally allowed to be aged for a maximum of 28 days from the day it is cut. By pre-ordering, you’ll ensure that the cheese is still lovely and fresh by New Years.

To pre-order, simply add your items to the shopping cart like usual, and when you reach the checkout, you will have the option to delay your delivery to either the week commencing December 8th or the week commencing December 15th. We will send a tracking reference, which will be activated once the parcel is collected and scanned at the depot.

Right now we’re offering an early bird discount for our cheese pre orders. To save 10% off any pre-order before October 31st, use the code EARLYBIRD at checkout.

We’ll do everything we can to ensure there’s plenty available, but make sure you get your order in a few weeks early just in case. Don’t worry, the cheese will stay fresh for a long time!

In the meantime, please check out our blogs for more gift ideas, or to learn more about us and our cheese. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We look forward to hearing from you!