How to make... Salers

Have you ever wondered how to make AOC Salers Tradition?  Do you know what is AOC Salers Tradition??  Well, neither did I until I came to France.  And two weeks ago I took a trip with my flatmate, Andy, to the region west of ours, Auvergne, home of Salers.  We visited two different producers and, while I have been told that a cheesemaker's technique plays a huge role in cheesemaking, I finally witnessed this first hand.

Jeremy cutting the curds

First, let's talk "AOC."  This label stands for Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée and identifies the authenticity of a product, ensuring its fabrication is historically and geographically accurate.  In this case, Salers was historically made in the Cantal department in the Auvernge region with the use of wooden barrels or gerles.

Because Salers has the AOC label, a cheesemaker can only make Salers in Cantal, in a gerle, and this cheesemaker must follow many other AOC standards - a recipe, of sorts.  Moreover, Salers Tradition means only the Salers breed of cow can be milked for the creation of a Salers Tradition cheese.  So not only must an AOC Salers Tradition cheesemaker follow very stringent requirements, he or she must also work with a very fussy cow.

Salers cows in pasture

The Salers cow is one of two breeds in the world with very maternal instincts: she will not let her milk down unless she is near her calf.  So Salers milkers tie the calves to their mothers and, traditionally, tie their milking stools to their belts to be able to plop down and milk a cow anywhere in the pasture at any time.

Andy and I woke up at 5:00 AM on Saturday (yes, Saturday) to drive into Auvergne to visit cheesemakers Jeremy at Salers de Buron and Madeleine at farm GAEC Pierre Levée.  Upon arrival at Salers de Buron, we met the milkers at their breakfast table.  They had just arrived from the morning's milking and were finishing up their meal.

Jeremy's preferred curd size

Andy and I waited outside, admiring the view of cows and pigs roaming the old, rounded mountains of the Massif Central.  When Jeremy brought us to the cheesemake, we found the gerle already filled with coagulated milk.  It had been inoculated with rennet an hour ago and was ready to be cut.  He - and later we would find Madeleine also - used a ring with wire mesh at the base of a long pole to cut the curds; both cheesemakers dipping into the coagulated milk slowly, vertically, all the way to the bottom, over and over again.  Jeremy cut his curds for quite a long time and then showed us the size of curds he prefers.  Madeleine, on the other hand, cut for much less time. We noticed, as she stirred the curds with her flat board, that some of her curds were actually still very long.

Madeleine's preferred curd size

The cutting and stirring of the curds releases the whey.  In other words, when milk coagulates, the "hard" part of the milk, or the curds, come together, leaving the watery part of the milk, or the whey (or lactoserum).  The whey is rich in protein and is acidic, which is why cheesemakers often feed their whey to their pigs and why Jeremy uses his skimmed whey to clean his gerle.  Removing the whey from the curds is how cheese can taste sweet instead of acidic, and why we have cheeses that are hard, rather than crumbly or a consistency closer to milk. 

Pressing the curds into a tomme

After cutting and stirring, Jeremy and Madeleine scooped out their respective whey, leaving all the cheese curds at the bottom of the gerle.  Doing so gently presses the curds (thanks, gravity!), which releases even more whey.  When the cheesemaker feels he or she has removed enough whey, he or she scoops the curds out of the gerle and into the tomme presse for a first serious pressing.  Jeremy and Madeleine pressed their curds and then cut their curd-block into bricks, piled the bricks up, and pressed the curds again, repeating the process for about an hour and a half.  Even the way they cut and stacked their curds was different.  Madeleine breaking the curds apart with her hands on round one, Jeremy using a big knife right from the get go.  As the curds were pressed, the whey poured and finally trickled out of the bottom of the press, which indicated that the curds were ready to sit and ferment for 24 to 36 hours.

Grinding the tommes

The next day, those tommes of pressed curds (one from the morning's milking, one from the afternoon) are ground up, salted and mixed.  The ground curds-and-salt then sit for another 24 hours before they are gathered together and pressed in their definitive Salers mold.  The cheesemaker wraps the curds in a cheese cloth within the mold that he or she changes every 20 minutes at first and then once a day with each flip of the cheese.  Changing the cloth keeps the cheese clean and helps remove moisture.  The press increases in pressure with every flip and the temperature during the whole cheesemaking process is closely monitored.

Cheese press and gerles

Madeleine told me that if I should remember only one thing about cheesemaking, it's temperature.  I promised her I'd remember by writing "TEMPERATURE" in big capital letters in my notes.  As the milk changes to curds and then to cheese, the temperature gets cooler and cooler - any thermal shock could cause the cheese to sweat (the oils ooze out) in its cave, or the flavor of the cheese could rapidly become bitter.

Jeremy's cave

While Andy and I did not witness Jeremy or Madeleine putting the salted curds into their molds for pressing, we did visit their aging caves and we got a taste of Madeleine's five-month "baby."  I noticed that hers tasted and smelled a bit like bread - yeasty and wholesome with some sweetness and a hint of acid at the end.  The texture was slightly moist and crumbly like a cheddar (both are pressed, non-heated cheeses) and it coated my mouth but didn't overwhelm.  I also tasted what Madeleine called her "bad," older version and liked it even more because even though it was more acidic, all the other flavors were more pronounced as well.  I took home a chunck of the "bad" cheese and Andy got a slice of the five-month Salers.  On our late drive home, Andy's slice never made it out of the car.

A few days old

One year old