Stilton cheese has protected status. Only cheese made in three English shires using local, pasteurized milk can bear the name. We take a look at how this historic cheese is made.
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00:00 It's a mouldy sight, but an English delight.
00:03 Blue Stilton consider the king of English cheeses.
00:07 Beautiful, full flavoured yet creamy.
00:12 Did you know that Stilton, just like champagne, can only be produced in one
00:16 specific region?
00:17 Lovely and creamy, buttery, perfect.
00:20 So how's it made? And why is the mould
00:24 so important? We travel to England
00:27 to find out. Would you like to try some?
00:31 Stilton can only be produced in the three
00:36 English counties of Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
00:40 And only six cheese dairies produce Stilton.
00:43 We went to Derbyshire to try some. Cows graze around Hartington Creamery,
00:48 the smallest Stilton producer. Diana Alcock is a female Stilton maker in
00:54 what's traditionally a boys club.
00:56 She's been perfecting the recipe for 10 years.
01:00 We've got traditional Friesian cross cows, which
01:04 are perfect for making the type of milk
01:08 that we need. So it needs to be quite strict fat and protein
01:12 compositional factors.
01:16 First Diana adds rennet and blue mould starter cultures to the pasteurised milk.
01:25 It's really important that at this stage we're
01:28 very gentle with the milk. Stilton
01:33 as a whole, you need to be really gentle at every step of the process so
01:38 it all needs treating like a baby.
01:42 The next day it looks like this. Diana checks the acidity of the curd.
01:48 When it's just right, she seasons it with salt.
01:51 The curd is then ground.
01:56 It's the only step in the process not done by hand.
02:00 It has to be a milled curd
02:03 and we're looking for a walnut size piece.
02:08 If you look here, we've got all
02:12 different sizes of curd,
02:15 which is exactly what we're looking for.
02:21 The ground curd is filled into the traditional Stilton forms
02:25 and stored for four days until enough liquid has been released.
02:29 After removing the containers, Diana smooths out
02:36 every single cheese wheel to make it airtight.
02:39 What we want to do
02:44 is seal all the holes on the outside
02:47 so that we can control the growth of blue mould.
02:51 If it's left open, then oxygen will get in
02:55 and start the blue mould growth, but we don't want that. We don't want that
02:59 until further down the process.
03:03 The cheeses are then transferred to the maturing room
03:06 where they are regularly turned.
03:12 What we don't want is for all the moisture in effect to sink down to the bottom of the cheese.
03:16 If it was this way round for a long time, all the moisture would go down to the bottom
03:21 and you'd end up with
03:22 what we call an elephant's foot in the trade.
03:26 After four weeks of maturing
03:30 and once more after six weeks, the cheeses
03:34 are pierced to introduce some airflow.
03:42 At this stage, what we want to do is to allow the oxygen
03:46 into the cheese to start the growth of the mould.
03:50 The growth of the mould spores then breaks down the curd
03:54 so that it goes from quite a crumbly,
03:58 almost a dry texture to begin with,
04:02 to the creamy, buttery taste with the blue veins
04:05 running throughout it.
04:08 Eight weeks later, the time has finally come for Diana's all-important taste test.
04:13 The blue is running throughout.
04:18 It's starting to develop a nice
04:21 creamy colour and the back of the iron, we've got a nice
04:25 buttery feel. There's no
04:29 off flavours and it's quite sweet and
04:33 nutty, the smell. And then try.
04:37 So I'm getting all those lovely blue cheese notes, there's no bitterness,
04:40 lovely and creamy, buttery, perfect.
04:44 Around 8,000 tons of Stilton are produced
04:48 every year and sold around the world.
04:52 In England, Stilton reigns supreme
04:56 as king of the cheeses.
04:58 [MUSIC PLAYING]
05:01 (upbeat music)