In the wake of her latest Gold award for making cheese, Ceri Cryer of the Brinkworth Dairy shares the secret of her success with Marion Sauvebois

CHEESEMAKING is the magical marriage of science and artistry, according to award-winning producer Ceri Cryer.

Then again, the secret to achieving a unique and succulent taste could be the hard-core death metal music blasted through Brinkworth Dairy’s factory during preparation courtesy of cheesemaker Lewis Williams – an experiment of sorts.

Experimentation - with fermentation, maturing and recipes - is something Ceri has done plenty of since launching a range of cheeses at the family farm in 2006.

“There are all these different variations which can influence the cheese – the timing, the humidity, temperature of the room, the protein and fat ratio in the milk. It’s the task of the cheesemaker to adjust the recipe.

“You might need to tweak things. It’s a science and you have to be precise, take measurements. But it’s also an art and you have to make judgements about how things are going. It’s a constant experiment. And you need to keep on changing the range you are making to keep customers interested. It’s not easy.

“But it’s just magical to go from liquid milk to this solid mass that you start cutting.

“And the cheeses are all handmade, just as my great grandfather would have done... except for the pasteurising and the death metal music.”

Over the years her cheeses have received a string of industry accolades, including a silver award for the Brinkworth Blue at the British Cheese Awards 2014 and the coveted Best Territorial Cheese for her Wiltshire Loaf at the British Cheese Awards 2013 – a variety her great grandfather William Collingborn began producing on the farm in 1910.

Yet despite regional and national recognition, her latest achievement – a gold award at the Taste of the West 2014 for her Royal Bassett Blue – has been her proudest moment and the crowning of years spent concocting and polishing the “soft blue”.

The creamy delicacy had been her castle in the sky, the dream which sparked her cheese-making venture but would take nearly six years on and off to craft.

“Royal Bassett Blue was the one I wanted to make when I started out,” she said. “I love a softer blue cheese. But it was such a tricky cheese to make. It’s a mould-ripening cheese and we had lots of experimentation to get it right. It took years on and off.”

Following failed experiments on her coveted soft blue cheese, Ceri settled for a soft fresh cheese – for its ability to set quickly. The farm then began producing a Wiltshire Loaf, in keeping with family tradition, and the Brinkworth Blue.

In 2012, after two years of planning, testing, tweaking and perfecting her recipe, she eventually released her long-desired soft blue – named Royal Bassett Blue to celebrate Wootton Bassett receiving its Royal title.

“The Royal Bassett Blue is the most labour intensive cheese we make. The ripening takes three weeks. Every week it’s pierced and turned.

“It ‘oozes sexily out of the package’, according to the Taste of the West judges. Sexy is always what we go for,” she laughed.

“They are ripened in boxes and that helps the blue mould to grow. It is my favourite with the Wiltshire Loaf.”

The cheeses are made from pasteurised milk and are all suitable for vegetarians as she uses microbial rennet. As well as milk and cheese the farm also produces yogurt, cream and ice cream.

Although born on a farm, Ceri’s interest lay elsewhere growing up and she applied to read biology at Oxford University. It is there that she hatched ambitions of becoming a Blue Peter presenter and even did work experience at the BBC.

She later enrolled on a teacher training course at Cambridge University. It was on one of her secondary teaching placements that she met her husband-to-be Chad. Together they returned to Wiltshire and taught in secondary schools before Chad, now 40, suggested Ceri diversify the dairy farm’s business.

The business initially consisted of Ceri in her kitchen with a saucepan, bucket and small bain-marie – and only vague remnants of knowledge from a cheese course she has taken with her father at the age of 15.

The venture took off when the couple were awarded a grant from the DEFRA rural enterprise scheme.

Now an established cheese-maker, the only cloud to her sunny day is her six-year-old son Bede’s firm dislike of cheese.

After creating her Garlic and Pepper soft creamy cheese, the 35-year-old set out to rediscover Hill End Farm’s tradition by making a Wiltshire Loaf – an institution in the region which even made an appearance in Jane Austen’s novels Emma and Pride and Prejudice.

“I started off working on my own. It was hard,” said Ceri. “I didn’t have notes straight from my great grandfather. But I found a recipe for the traditional cheese on the wall of the Lackham Agricultural College’s museum and a friend gave me Forgotten Harvest by Avice Wilson. She used to be a cheese technologist from the Calne area and moved to America, so I wrote to her. She wrote back and gave me all her research on the Wilshire Loaf. She is a very good historian. I still keep her index cards by my bed.”

Ceri’s cheeses are available online at www.brinkworthdairy.co.uk or at Purton Farm Shop, Three Trees Farm Shop and Aldbourne Stores.