Drysdale Cheeses is the first commercial goat cheese manufacturer on the Bellarine Peninsula. Registered in December 2005, our cheese making concentrates on a range of hand made cheeses, manufactured from the high quality milk from our herd of Saanen goats.
The goats live on our Scotchmans Road property in Bellarine, where they are milked daily. We are a registered dairy herd and so all of our animals are pure bred. Their diet comprises of unimproved pasture, tree cuttings, pasture hay and a goat "muesli" that we mix for them. Extra essential minerals and vitamins are administered via seaweed meal and salt licks. Although we are not certified organic, we follow permaculture farming principles and adopt ethical animal treatment. We do not milk animals that are heavily pregnant and newborn kids will stay with their mums for those first few days of all-important colostrum (first milk). Each doe only kids once every two years, allowing for their optimal health.
The milk is then transported back to our cheese making room at Drysdale. The basic method for making cheese requires pasteurisation in this country, although a small group of speciality cheesemakers are working to allow raw milk cheese to be made legal in Australia soon. After pasteurisation, cheesemaking cultures are added to the milk for flavour ripening and then an enzyme called rennet is added to coagulate the milk, thus producing curds and whey. Our cheese making procedures use only vegetarian rennet. Different varieties of cheese will then require different temperatures and different treatments. The cheeses are made in small batches and require careful aging and draining, and so may be unavailable from time to time.
Drysdale Cheeses are only available locally, from selected restaurants, providores and our monthly farm gate shop. Phone Corinne on 0437816374 for more information.
We are now also conducting cheese making courses at Springdale Community Centre, Drysdale. Phone Springdale for more information.
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