Buffalo Milk Cheese

Everything You Want to Know

Buffalo Milk Cheese FAQ

Answers to some frequently asked questions about cheese. For more info check out our Cheese Care page.

Still unsure? Come into any of our shops to chat cheese and have a taste!

The Sheridans Team

For a cheeseboard allow around 75g-100g approximately of cheese in total for each guest. Therefore if you are serving 10 people and have 4 cheeses, you would serve around 1kg in total, so about of 250g of each cheese.

The amount of cheese required will also depend on whether the cheeses are to be served after dinner, at a tasting or as finger food etc. The manner in which the cheese is to be served – whether as individual cheese plates, buffet style, or as cheeseboards – will also affect the quantities required.

In most cases, yes! Unless it’s covered in wax or cloth, eating the rind is a preferential decision. Technically rinds on comte and rinded blues are totally edible but they can impart a bitter flavour. Cheese is a natural product, and from time to time you can expect some blooms and moulds to develop on the outside, this is perfectly natural. Some people prefer not to eat the rind at all. As a rule of thumb – on hard cheeses the rind is best removed, on softer cheeses it is by most considered to be an integral part of the cheese, but it should always be a case of personal preference (if you enjoy it – eat it, if you don’t, then don’t!) the cheese (paste) just under the rind is usually the tastiest!

Rennet is made of enzymes chymosin and pepsin found in the stomach lining of ruminant mammals. It is a natural coagulant that helps form the curds in the cheesemaking process and ensures the coagulation happens without the cheese going sour. Rennet is only derived from animals that have previously been slaughtered and never solely for this purpose.

You may be familiar with the term vegetarian rennet, which is often displayed on the label of cheeses. This almost always refers to amicrobial rennet substitute. Microbial rennet is produced by a fungi grown and fermented in a lab setting. This type of rennet works quite well and is cheaper than traditional rennet but can produce a bitter taste in mature cheeses. However this pure microbial rennet has almost entirely been replaced by a more modern version, FPC – Fermentation Produced Chymosin rennet. This version of microbial rennet is made by taking the enzyme-producing gene out of the mammal’s cell’s DNA string and introducing it into a host fungi’s DNA string. This enables the fungi to produce the chymosin enzyme. This fungi can then be cultivated in a lab and fermented, ready to be used as rennet. This genetically modified rennet does not give the bitter flavour in mature cheeses and it is even cheaper to produce. The use of vegetarian rennet is not always advertised on the labels of cheese. The ingredients often just say rennet but, because of its cost effectiveness, genetically modified rennet is used in the production of almost all industrial cheeses. It is important to distinguish this genetically modified organism from genetically engineered foods. When the DNA from the animal is inserted into the fungi, it is not altered, whereas in genetically engineered products the DNA is altered to change its function, altering completely the nature of the gene. There is a third version of vegetarian rennet called thistle rennet. This is the only true vegetable rennet produced from the cardoon thistle (Cynara cardunculus), a species of artichoke. This plant contains an enzyme called cardosin which acts to coagulate the milk in a similar way to the chymosin enzyme. Coagulation takes longer and works better in milk with high levels of protein and fat, so sheep’s milk is perfect. It is most commonly used in Portuguese sheep’s milk cheeses but has also been used for centuries in areas of Spain, Italy and France. Jewish communities were using it to make kosher cheese before the invention of modern rennet substitutes. It gives a particular citrusy and slightly bitter flavour and a more fudgy texture. Some of the most interesting and delicious cheeses are made using this gift of nature

Cheese should be stored in a cool place: Harder cheeses at about 10 °C (your porch, if you have one, can be a great place during the winter months). For softer and blue cheeses 4°C is ideal. A good compromise is to store all your cheese in the vegetable compartment of your fridge, usually at around 4.5°C. It can be stored in its original wrapper. If you are removing portions, you can re-wrap in greaseproof, cheese paper or our Sheridans Millbee Wax Wraps. Clingfilm is fine for harder cheeses but can impart a plastic flavour over time.

Check out our Cheese Guide page for tips on how to cut every style of cheese to make a great cheese board presentation!