Leon

Leon the Milkman has a B.Sc majoring in Food Science And Chemistry. Having had stints in most food industries, his love for dairy won and he has been working in the dairy industry in the Western Cape Province of South Africa since 1997. He is a Research Tech. and presents regular Cheese and Yoghurt Making Courses.

Wensleydale Cheese Blog

Published September 6, 2006 | By Leon

Hi, Cheese Fans

Check out the new blog at:

http://www.wensleydaleblog.co.uk/

This blog will keep you up to date with all the happenings at the Wensleydale Creamery – and they are busy 😉

Enjoy,

Leon the Milkman

Solving QC problems with outsourcing

Published September 6, 2006 | By Leon

Hi, Guys

When solving a dairy QC problem be sure that you can trace everything from its origin and be sure what info you can give away to an outside source.

On the other hand be sure that you can give enough info for the person to help you – I get loads of requests for help, where I am not allowed to enter the premises or may not see the recipe or changes or whatever!Â Â How can you help someone like that!

Hope this helps somebody, somewhere 😉

Kind regards,

Leon the Milkman

Boeren Kaas vs. Gouda

Published September 6, 2006 | By Leon

Hi, Cheese Fans

It seems that the main difference between the above mentioned cheeses are that in the heating/cooking phase the Boeren Kaas is heated to to about 50-55Â°C where the Gouda is only heated to about 38Â°C.

Kind regards,

Leon the Milkman

Easiest Cheese to Make?

Published September 4, 2006 | By Leon

Hi, Cheese Fans

I would have to say from easy to more difficult the orderÂ would have to be something like this:

Cottage Cheese
Feta
Mozzarella
Gouda
Cheddar

That is for the 5 cheeses mentioned anyway 🙂

Kind regards,

Leon the Milkman

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Cheese Girl Link!

Published September 2, 2006 | By Leon

Hi, Guys

I just got a link from Cheese Girl and I repaid the favour – you can check out her fantastically informative blog at http://cheesaholics.blogs.com/

Thanks, Cheese Girl,

Kind regards,Â

Leon the Milkman

Where did that yoghurt taste come from?

Published August 31, 2006 | By Leon

Hi, Yoghurt Fans

When you have a funny taste in your yoghurt it is not always funny 😉

If the factory manufactures an unflavoured yoghurt and then add flavours, the first question should be if the taste is present in the unflavoured yoghurt as well.Â If it is, then it cannot have come from the flavour or fruit thatÂ was added, right?

So now it must come from anything that is added before that point, like the milk itself, the stabilisers, the sugar/sweeteners or base.Â Â Get to every ingredient, and make sure it is from the same batch.Â Â For example, get milk from the same farmer on the same day, etc.

Some of the yoghurt can be used to innoculate autoclaved/UHT/longlife milk and if the same taste is perceived after the milk is set, then the taste is microbial, right?Â Â I say this because if the 3% or so yoghurt with the funny taste was mixed into milk and no taste was evident and after incubation the taste is there, then it must be microbial, I think.

Hope you found this of value.

Kind regards,

Leon the Milkman

Factors affecting Somatic Cell Counts (SCC)

Published August 27, 2006 | By Leon

Hi, Dairy Farmers

Read this great new article on my www.dairy-info.org site.

Have you had your milk today?

Kind regards,

Leon the Milkman

Cow Dialect?

Published August 24, 2006 | By Leon

Hi, Cow fans

Yes, if you’re a real cow lover, you have always known thatÂ they have accents just like humans, right?

Confirm it here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/country/article/0,,1856067,00.html

Kind regards,

Leon the Milkman

Milkman mixes

Published August 23, 2006 | By Leon

Hi, Folks

I mixed some calibration standards for dairy composition testing yesterday.Â We made up a set of ten samples with butterfat ranging from skimmed to 5%.

The whole process starts off with me collecting different milks from nearby farms – by different I mean milk that comes from different races of cows that feed on different feeds.

Once the milk is mixed to give it a range of fat it is tested by internationally accepted methods and distributed to factories to calibrate their testing equipment.

Kind regards,

Leon the Milkman

Mozzarella not stretching?

Published August 18, 2006 | By Leon

Hi, Cheese lovers

If you have the above problem I would recommend that you taste the milk first to see if you can detect something that way.Â If the milk is not very sweet – chances are that water was added.Â Â After doing a freezing point to eliminate that possibility, I would do solids, meaning fat and protein in this case.Â

I would also do a phosphatase test to see if the milk was not pasteurized previously, because that would denature the protein so that it will not stretch on a second heating.Â Â You might have pasteurized at too high a temperature yourself as well.

The milk could have a high SCC(somatic cell count) which is an indication of mastitis and this would lower the casein protein in the milk, which would lead to lower yields of cheese and slower, weaker setting of the curd.

Kind regards,

Leon the Milkman