Sheep and Goat Milk Cheese

Sheep and Goat Milk Cheese Warren: Here, we some sheep milk cheeses mostly from Canada. We have a few from around the world. What are some different qualities of cheese milk other than cow? Hugh: Sheep’s milk behaves in very different ways from cow a lot of the time. It's got a very characteristic flavor to itself. Well, I don’t know how to describe other than sheepy. So the fresh springy taste a lot of the time. Warren: I sometimes say wooly but people don’t like that. Hugh: Yup, sometimes particularly in older cheeses like the aged sheep’s milk. The taste can be a sort of wool flavor to it. Warren: Usually that sweet grassiness. Hugh: Yeah, lanolin is the way it's often described particularly with younger cheeses, younger, fresher sheep’s milk. The flavors are often a little bit tart, lemony, grassy. The Sheep’s milk can be very difficult to work with because whereas cows will give milk for about 10 months a year. Sheep will only give milk for five or six months a year. They also have much smaller amounts of milk for animal so it can be very difficult for cheese makers to get enough cheese and to get enough milk to make a lot of cheese. Usually sheep’s milk producers are smaller, more seasonal than equivalent cow’s milk producers would be. I don’t know. I’ve got one of these. Warren: That’s cool. Here, we have some goat milk cheeses and some of them look pretty ordinarily. Hugh: They do. These are goat’s milk and these ones are almost all from Canada. What’s done with these cheeses is often they’ll be covered in layer of ash when they’re going to be aged. Warren: So that’s these three here? Hugh: Yeah, these ones are all covered in a layer of ash and what that does is it protects the cheese a bit and mold grows on the outside. It makes it ripe and very evenly and smoothly through the center of it. You can see on the one like this it’s got basically the right for the same amount the whole way through. She is partially ineffective. The ash rimes that’s applied to the outside of the goat’s milks. There are a couple of other different kinds here. I’ve got a goat’s milk cheddar and the natural rime from the Loire Valley in France and these cheeses are all goats’ milks will have that sort of characteristic goat taste. In fact, a good goat’s milk, it isn’t like one that you’re used to from the supermarket where you just got a big hint of goatiness. It should be a much more refined, delicate flavor than that, usually just a little hint of goat’s milk to the end of it. Warren: And people who are concerned about the amount of lactose that they’re eating. Definitely goat’s milk, cheese milk is much lower. Male: Yeah, a lot of people who can't digest cow’s milk find that goat’s milk and sheep’s milk gives them no trouble at all. It depends on the individual person on what they’re reacting to but often the goat’s milk will be just fine for people.