Made in London: David Holton from Blackwoods Cheese

Blackwoods Cheese
By Victoria Stewart12 February 2018

It is late morning near Sevenoaks, Kent, and at Commonworks Organic Farm a shed full of cows are enjoying their elevenses. Towards the back of the shed, three giant carwash-style brushes are visible. “They’re the cow back scratchers - they’re very happy cows!” says my guide, David Holton of Blackwoods Cheese, who uses milk from this herd to make his products.

Blackwoods Cheese started life four years ago in Brockley, South East London when Holton and his colleague Tim Jarvis, both employeed for Neal’s Yard Dairy, would use their spare time to drive down to Kent to collect milk to turn into cheese, then sell it at Brockley Market. Last year, following a crowdfunding campaign, they opened their new dairy on the side of this farm, situated 45 minutes away by train from London Bridge.

I went to visit to hear more.

How did the business come about?

I’ve worked in cheese for 10 years. It started because I got to my mid-20s and decided that I didn’t want to do anything with science or communications which I’d studied. There was a job going at my local dairy which I could travel with, so it worked out. Initially this idea came about because in Australia some mates and I used to work together at Yarra Valley Dairy making this Graceburn ‘Persian Fetta’ cheese, and we naively thought we could easily make some to sell to farmers markets. Later I came to Neal’s Yard Dairy over here, I met Tim and we started making this in our spare time.

How much have you sold since you started?

When we started we were collecting the milk in 20-litre buckets - sometimes seven buckets coming to 140 litres. The most we ever did was 15 to 20 buckets, carting them back to London in a van when one of us had a day off. Now we’re using a 500-litre tank to collect it, and taking 1000 litres almost every week.

Blackwoods Cheese

How and where is it made?

Everything is made here by myself, Tim and my nephew, using milk from the farm. We collect milk twice a day to make our main cheese, the Graceburn (sold in jars, with a texture slightly similar to a feta cheese) and our Edmund Tew (a soft lactic cow’s milk cheese), which we’re still developing. We also sell the whey from the Graceburn, which is usually considered a by-product, but we sell a lot.

In four to six weeks’ time, we’ll also start making our fresh William Heaps cheese, because the milk quality is better in summer. For the Graceburn, we start with raw milk which is still warm, then add in cultures. We set it using traditional animal rennet and leave it to acidify. Once it’s reached the desired pH we ladle and drain the curds - we also salt these slightly and sell some fresh - before pressing them into a big disc of cheese. These go into a brine with oil and herbs where they’ll sit for 10 days or more, and once out we pack it into jars or catering tubs. We’re currently buying in European olive oil and rapeseed oil, and herbs, although the guys at Commonworks are growing thyme for us here for us to use soon. Olive oil has too much flavour on its own, so we use more rapeseed oil as it carries the herb flavours really well. The Edmund Tew is challenging to make and mature but we’re really starting to get somewhere with it. We make it by taking the cold milk and adding in two different starter cultures that do different things for it, enabling different flavours or textures. Eventually it changes consistency and start to get really thick. We cut it into cubes, put these into moulds, drain them for 48 hours, salt them, then take them to the maturation room where they’ll be for around three weeks.

Do you still eat your cheeses?

Yes, and we generally have a 2.5kg jar of Graceburn in the fridge. It works with all varieties of hot and cold salads - but people also tell me eat it after they’ve been to the pub late on Friday nights!

Can you describe a day in the life of a cheesemaker?

Day-to-day, between us we get in early around 5.30 to 6am to collect the milk, and stay until about 6.30pm. At weekends I’ll come in once or twice to turn the cheese. Tuesday and Wednesdays are our making days; Thursdays we pack; Fridays we clean; Saturdays we sell at Brockley and Borough Markets.

Blackwoods Cheese

Which other London producers do you admire?

Adrienne Treeby at Crown and Cue is great and all of her products - ethically sourced cured meats - are amazing. The guys from Gosnells Mead make good stuff too. And we really like The Kernel Brewery, whose beers are delicious. They’re also ex-Neal’s Yard Dairy so their whole focus towards ethics and quality are great.

Find Blackwoods Cheese at Neal’s Yard Dairy, and at Brockley and Borough markets; for more information visit blackwoodscheesecompany.co.uk

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