[Sca-cooks] Autumn cheese?

[Stefan li Rous]

Bear said:
<<< It may be that "harvest cheese" is a category rather than a type.  Butterfat 
in milk is lower in spring and summer and higher in fall and winter 
(probably based on the natural calving season).  Thus, a harvest cheese 
would be any cheese produced from August onward into Fall and Winter and 
would have a higher butterfat content than other cheeses. >>>

Ok, I’ll grant that the butterfat content of the cheese is likely to be affected by the time of year, but I’ve also seen accounts about the Spring milk/cheese being affected by the herbs and the freshness of the grass and foliage being eaten by the animals, as Ana suggests.

Why do you say lower butterfat in Spring and Summer? Do we have some figures for this? I can well imagine the fat content varies seasonally, but wouldn’t it need to be higher when the calves are first born? Which is in spring, right?

<<< Butterfat content is not the issue it would have been in period given modern 
cattle breeding and year-round calving. >>>

And that assumes we are talking about “whole” milk. It seems like most of the milk fat is skimmed off before we even get “whole” milk, much less 2 and 1 percent fat milk. 

How is the milk fat regulated these days by cheese makers? Are they using “whole” seasonally affected or not milk? Are they adding in more milk fat as needed for particular cheeses?

For good or bad, I think we’ve probably eliminated the seasonality from cheeses.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at gmail.com
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