Orkney Scottish Island Cheddar

Appearance & taste

The cheese has a firm but pliable, smooth and close texture. It tastes moderately sharp and tangy, with rounded savoury and nutty notes, and has the full aroma of a Cheddar. Depending on the maturing time, it is sold in three grades: mild (6 to 12 months) with a smooth texture and a slightly aromatic taste, mature (12 to 15 months), firmer and slightly sharp, and extra mature (15 to 18 months), firm and slightly crumbly, with sharp, aromatic notes and lactate crystals.

There is a white and a coloured variety; the coloured one receives a vegetable colouring after pasteurisation. The cheese contains 33 to 36 % water, 33 to 36 % fat (50 to 52 % in dry matter) and 1.6 to 2.1 % salt. It is made in 20 kg blocks and, after maturing, cut into various shapes and sizes as required.

Production

The milk comes from farms on the Orkney Islands, mainly from cows of the Holstein-Friesian and Ayrshire breeds. The cows spend six months on pasture and the rest of the year indoors. They eat fresh grass and silage, supplemented by barley and turnips from the islands and draff from a local distillery. GMO-free soya, sugar beet and minerals come from outside.

The fresh milk is pasteurised and standardised. The cheesemaker monitors the development of acidity; when it is right, the whey is drained off and the curd is tipped onto a large table, the “finishing table”. In “dry stirring”, introduced in 1984 according to the specification, the curd is stirred there constantly so that it does not knit together, then salted and left to rest. The salt is usually scattered by hand about 3 hours 20 minutes after renneting, much as seed used to be sown in the fields. According to the specification, this distributes it more evenly than in conventional Cheddar making, and the cheese becomes particularly firm. The curd consolidates into blocks, which are packed and matured on wooden frames. All steps from milk collection to maturing and grading take place on the islands.

Origin & history

The Orkney Islands are gently rolling arable and pasture land with deep, fertile topsoil that has been farmed for over 5,000 years; their Neolithic monuments are a World Heritage Site. According to the specification, the climate tempered by the nearby Gulf Stream, the soil rich in iodine and sulphur and the constant daylight around midsummer produce lush pastures.

According to the specification, cheesemaking on the islands goes back to the smallholders (“crofters”): the farmer’s wife sold surplus cheese to supplement the meagre income, and some cheeses were kept as a winter store in oatmeal stores. Because milk production had been greatly increased during the Second World War to supply 60,000 soldiers on the islands, there was too much milk after the war ended. In 1946 the original creamery was therefore built in Kirkwall; it made hard cheese in cylinder, block and wheel shapes. In 1958 a new creamery switched to Cheddar, and in 1984, after a trial period, the recipe was changed to the “dry stir technique”.