Tell us a bit about you Gary, working his vat I am Gary and I run and own Hamm Tun Fine Foods, based in Northamptonshire.  Hamm Tun is an unusual and unique name, reflecting our heritage.  In Saxon times, the village of Northampton was named Hamm Tun, which means village by the well-watered meadow.  Later, North was added to the beginning forming North Hamm Tun which may have been to help differentiate it from Southampton. Some people call us Cobblers Nibble, after the cheese

The curd table on the trailer Curd tables are an under looked piece of kit when planning a dairy, but you do need something to put pots on, pot out on and a whole load of other things too.  Traditionally, people use them to pour curd on to and then pot up.  We pot up in the vat and transfer the pots from the vat to the table to rest, three high and give them a ‘mini’ press. Our old curd table was a great piece of kit, but ultimately not really quite big enough for our needs,

Our new vac packer Yes, our life is that exciting that Stu and I keep commenting to each other how much we like our new vac packer.  It is not that much bigger in footprint than our old vac packer, maybe  a little longer but oh so much faster. Vac packers are a much under looked and under planned piece of kit in a dairy.  We use it for packing cheese to mature until we decide what to do with them e.g. wax or naturally rind.  It is convenient for us to be able to store cheese

Paul from Brytec and Stu carrying Victor into the dairy As some of you will know, Brytec make or source and refurbish and maintain all of our dairy equipment for us. I cannot say enough about Brytec, we have found them very good to deal with as they understand that we are all on a tight budget and Victor in situ cannot afford new things.  With this in mind, they are very resourceful at making things for us out of other items, like our newest addition to the dairy, Victor. We

Mexican Cheese Made in Peckham Launches From the Speciality Fine Food Magazine 11/6/13 An urban dairy is launching its own Mexican cheese. Gringa Dairy, which is housed under a railway arch in Peckham, South London, has produced a soft cow’s milk cheese is the style of a Mexican cheese which is not dissimilar to Feta. The dairy, one of only a handful of businesses producing cheese in London, is the brainchild of Californian-born Kristen Schnepp, who makes Gringa Dairy Queso F

Week Before Last Cutting into cubes in our cheese making class On Monday, we made a small vat of Wensleydale with our new cow milk supplier’s milk and at the same time took a cheese making course with Tina. Tuesday was a mad waxing day with Stu and I waxing like crazy, having put the smoker on twice.  We smoke our own cheese, using oak chippings from Theakston’s brewery. On Wednesday, we made a 1,900 litre vat of Superior Goat Gouda and on Thursday a 1,900 litre vat of Origin

Four rows in the press of sheep cheese and 120 Yorkshire Goat Gouda on the curd table, draining for packing on Monday On Monday, we have around 120 Yorkshire Goat Gouda to vac pack and put away, then the 166 pots of sheep to take out of the press, vac pack, wash the pots and clean the dairy down. Our next milk delivery is goat milk on Tuesday, so Tuesday is going to be a mad waxing day. Wednesday we will make Goat Gouda, Thursday Original Goat and Friday we will be tidying up

Ribblesdale Original Goat Here is a picture of our Original Goat cheese.  It is made in the style of  a Wensleydale: creamy, crumbly and fresh.  This is the cheese that I first started to make back in November 2008, six weeks after we moved from our old base in Horton in Ribblesdale to Hawes. We needed to move because we simply did not have enough space in which to create a dairy; it was my mission, eighteen months after I took the business over, to become cheese makers once

Alan Foster-Smith from Orchard Valley You may think that we have more visitors than work…it’s not true!  We welcome visitors and it’s nice to learn from others, catch up on all the latest news and show them round our little dairy and wholesale side with a certain amount of pride.  Yes, we are proud of our little place. Today, Alan Foster-Smith from Orchard Valley came to say hello.  This is his second visit to see us, to discuss starter cultures, rennet, cheese wax and the li

Stuart potting up the mini cheeses Some months ago, we started to talk to our ever-patient equipment suppliers, Brytec about how best to make mini cheeses.  We know that most people mulch up cheese and extrude it, but we didn’t want to do this, because we didn’t want to alter the texture. Plus, most people make mini cheeses from returns and second grade cheese, where we don’t have returns or make second grade cheese. I like Brytec because they are down to earth, are extremely

Our new press for mini cheeses We have wanted to make mini cheeses for some time but have lacked the equipment to do so. There are several reasons behind us wanting to make little mini cheeses: firstly, because customers ask for mini waxed cheeses in the shop,  secondly, our wholesale customers ask us on a regular basis, usually around this time of year, in preparation for Christmas and thirdly, two customers have recently asked us if we could make our cheese in mini format t