The Rural Voice, 1983-01, Page 15pressure from the health units, (Milk
Industry Branch of the Department of
Agriculture and Food, Health Protection
Branch of Canada, and Ministry of
Environment)," he said. "They don't want
any bacteria in the milk, so they have no
flavour in the cheese either. You can't
have one without the other."
Traditionally, Canadian cheddar has
been made with raw (unpasteurized) milk
which contains natural lactic acid bac-
teria. "This bacteria gives the particular
flavour of raw milk cheddar," Bill Harley
of the Dairy Inspection Branch in
Woodstock explained. Any cheese made
from raw milk is stored for at least 90
days to ensure that no pathogenic
bacteria remain in it. The cheese is then
tested before it is sold. "What's made
Ontario cheese famous is its raw milk
flavour," said Ivan Baskett, Regional
Marketing Officer with the Ontario Milk
Marketing Board.
However, in all but three of Ontario's
cheese plants, the milk is pasteurized or
"heat-treated" before the cheese is made.
The pasteurization process entails heat-
ing the milk to 72 degrees Celsius for
sixteen seconds and then cooling it
immediately. When the milk is heat-
treated, it is brought between 61 and 64
degrees Celsius for sixteen seconds and
then cooled. These processes, while
purifying the milk. kill all the natural
bacteria responsible for creating ched-
dar's distinctive flavour. A purified lactic
acid culture is then added to the milk to
begin the cheese process. "When pas-
teurized milk is used in cheese, all the
flavour must come from the culture itself.
The cheese will have a softer body and
will tend not to have much of a flavour,"
said Harley. "There is a more (masculine
or) dominant flavour in raw milk cheddar.
In heat-treated cheddar, this dominance
recedes, and in pasteurized cheddar, the
dominance is not there at all."
Although cheese manufacturers are
not yet required to pasteurize milk before
making cheese, all but three do so in
order to control the characteristics and
number of natural bacteria in the milk
and to ensure a predictable end product.
"The plants don't want to lose any
cheese, so they heat-treat the milk. The
yields aren't as high in raw milk cheddar,
and you can't make any mistakes when
you make it. In the cheese business, you
either make a profit by making a
high-quality cheese or by making a large
volume of second-grade cheese, "said
Harley.
Bridgeman, who has made traditional
cheddar at Mapleton since 1948, has
always used unpasteurized milk. "When
you're making cheese, the lactic acid is
growing --doubling every minute --and
you've got to stay with it. If you leave it,
you can ruin the cheese," said Bridge-
man. He still sells the cheese that he and
his partner, Charles Moon, of Belmont,
have made. "Ed Bridgeman is probably
one of the best raw milk cheddar
manufacturers in Ontario and that means
Canada," said Harley. "Raw milk cheddar
is an art form in itself."
At the Blanshard-Nissouri Cheese
Factory, in Welburn, near St. Mary's,
cheesemaker Max Frehner uses only raw
milk in his cheddar cheese. "With unpas-
teurized milk, you can get the protein
breakdown to get a better flavour. It will
make the cheese tangier and give it a
stronger flavour." Frehner, who learned
the craft of cheesemaking in Switzerland
and who has made Canadian cheddar for
16 years, explained that if pasteurized
milk is used for cheddar, the cheese
cannot age. "The milk won't break down.
You might get a good medium cheddar,
but not old." said Frehner. "If cheese
from pasteurized milk is aged, you get a
Cheddaring
bitterness in the back of your mouth
when you eat it. I1 Just doesn't quite
agree with you." Frehner, with his wife
Heidi, produces approximately 10,000
pounds of cheese in a week. "He's a very
good cheesemaker," said Baskett, "one
of the best around.'
Only the Blanshard-Nissouri Cheese
Factory and the Mapleton Cheese Store
sell raw milk cheddar in the Central and
Westen regions of Ontario. The Mapleton
Cheese Factory, however, closed in
March of this year.
A further constraint on small cheese
factories is the disposal of whey. the
liquid remaining after the cheese curd is
extracted from the milk. Traditionally,
cheese factories have spread whey over
fields requiring fertilzier However, whey.
three times more powerful than fertilizer.
can "burn the soil if it is applied too
heavily, and it cannot be applied at all if
THE RURAL VOICE, JANUARY 1983 PG. 15