Cravendale Milk is useless for making cheese

Yeah, nice big headline on that one please.

Yesterday I mentioned that I was making cheese and things had not gone to plan. Well I have some follow up news on that front.

We use Cravendale Milk. Mostly because of it's longevity. We buy the two litre packs and that usually lasts us a whole week. Good for cornflakes and tea throughout. We buy the semi-skimmed version (green top) simply because it has less fat and a decent taste. The skimmed one (red) tastes too watery.

I bought the Big Cheese Making Kit as part of my seeds order from Suttons.

They state quite clearly on their instructions and on the FAQ page on the Big Cheese's website..

... so naturally we bought the massive big whole milk (blue top) Cravendale Milk. I mean after all that is exactly what they said to use.

I was making the Ricotta Cheese so, being a first timer, I followed the instructions to the letter, carefully measuring out the 50ml of water for the 1.5 teaspoons of citric acid, taking careful consideration to times and temperatures etc. And what do I end up with? Barely 2oz of cheese as opposed to the 2lbs they say I should get.

The results, to say the least were very disappointing.

I was very annoyed as you can imagine. A waste of time and money. So I immediately filled in their "contact us" page. This morning I received the following email...

Hi there, 

Thanks for getting in touch and I'm sorry that your first attempt wasn't much of a success but it turns out that there is a really simple explanation.

Actually, we're really glad that you contacted us because you've highlighted an issue that we weren't really aware of. It turns out that the brand of milk that you used is the reason your ricotta didn't turn out, I've quoted what Cravendale say about their product below:

'We don't just pasteurise our milk, we also use ceramic filters to remove even more of the bacteria that turns milk sour. This keeps our milk deliciously pure and fresh for twice as long as standard fresh milk without the need for additives or preservatives. It's that simple.'

If you use normal full fat blue top milk (not processed or filtered) then you'll be fine. If you want an even higher yield then add in some gold top jersey milk or a touch of cream. 

You are right that a tsp is a teaspoon, make sure it's a full teaspoon that you use. It turns out that he citric acid wasn't your problem here though, the milk was.

Thanks very much for getting in touch, we hadn't come across this before!

Good luck with your next batch, which I'm sure will be a huge success.

Do let us know how you get on.

Kind regards, 

Alison

So, there you have it. Cravendale milk may be good for longevity, but the manufacturing process it goes through makes it useless for making cheese, even if you do use the Whole Milk version.

(Oh, incidentally it seems that Big Cheese are also breaking the law when it comes to their information. Statutory Instruments 1994 No 2866 and No 2867. Big Cheese only ever use Imperial measurements with no other options. Another reason I was annoyed with them. Use of old measurements should not be tolerated in this day and age. What is this? The 60's?)

Somebody somewhere owes me for 4.5 litres of milk.