2025 - 5 DAY NATURAL CHEESEMAKING CLASS

5-Day Natural Cheesemaking Class with David Asher in Rancho Avellanas, Guanacaste, Costa rica

January 13 - 17 2025 * introductory class

January 20 - January 24 2023 *second level CLASS

This will be our third five-day intensive natural cheesemaking class at the beautiful farmstead goat farm Rancho Avellanas, Costa Rica, just 5 minutes away from Avellanas Beach.

Course Description

5 DAY INTRODUCTORY CLASS

JANUARY 13 - 17 2025

From culture propagation to rennet coagulation and on to affinage, this comprehensive and hands on course covers nearly all aspects of a natural farmhouse cheesemaking.  Students can expect to learn how simple traditional methods can lead to a safe, effective, and delicious raw milk cheesemaking (as well as how to use these techniques with pasteurized milk!) 

On the first day we learn to care for the cultures of our cheese. We begin with a session on dairy fermentation, learning to develop our own sustainable starter culture solely from raw milk. We will also cover Kefir, Crème Fraiche and yogurt. 

On the second day we use our cultures and rennet to make fresh lactic cheeses such as Cream Cheese, Chevre and Faisselle as well as Geotrichum-candidum ripened lactic cheeses such as Crottin, Valençay and Saint Marcellin.  

On the third day we look at rennet cheeses, preparing, in the morning, the basic curd that can become many different styles of cheese. By the afternoon, the curd’s acidity will have developed and we’ll be able to stretch the cheese into Mozzarella, Queso Oaxaca and Burrata. We also explore the different rind ecologies of rennet cheeses including the white fungus of Camembert and the orange rinds of Limburger. 

On the fourth day we make a Bleu d’Auvergne and explore the cultivation of blue fungus that gives this cheese its blue veins. On this day, we also prepare rennet the traditional way.

And on the fifth and final day we make an Alpine cheese, and see how this one method can evolve in many different directions including Tomme, Raclette and Caciocavallo. With its leftover whey we prepare a batch of traditional Ricotta.

Five days of learning allows students to see many styles of cheese through the many stages of their evolution, and provides insight into how all cheeses can evolve from the very same milk, with the same culture and the same rennet. The course will focus on natural methods and a full circle, small-scale cheesemaking: no freeze-dried cultures or synthetic enzymes will be used in any of our makes.  

This class is for everyone: from the home cheesemaker to professional monger, the cheese-curious, and even those with many years experience but new to natural methods - David does his best to address the needs of all students in the class. And though introductory in his instruction, David also gets to some significant depths in teaching about cheese technologies, microbial ecologies, biochemistry and cheese history.

5 DAY second level CLASS

January 20 - 24 2025

This second course focuses on more challenging cheeses; those that require more careful curd handling, high temperature cooking or more complex ripening. It also explores the subjects of commercial adaptations of natural methods, production of rennet, and the diverse microbial ecologies of cheese to much greater degrees.

On day one we review the principles of natural cheesemaking, and prepare a Camembert and Brie in the traditional French style, moulé à la louche - hand ladled! also learning about the diverse ecologies of white rind cheese.

On the second day we prepare a Gouda and Saint Nectaire, by washing curds with hot water; we also explore washed rind ecologies, and odd fungi like Mucor.

On day three we make a stirred curd blue cheese, Bleu D’Auvergne. and learn more about the ecologies of Penicillium roqueforti.

On the fourth day we prepare a Cheddar, learning how to cheddar and mill its Curds. We then clothbound the pressed cheese, and also learn about how it can become a French Cantal.

And on the final day we make a full alpine cheese, Comté. cooking the curds to 52˚C, before birthing the cheese out from its whey.

Course Details

The class will take place at Rancho Avellanas Farmstead Goat Farm in Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

The cost of the class is $750 USD please sign up or email us at ranchoavellanas@gmail.com for payment options. Only payment options will be through our email.

Please email us at ranchoavellanas@gmail.com for housing recommendations and more travel information.

Class will be be from 9am to 4:30pm daily; with breaks from 12-1pm.

Conscientious lunches will be provided; as well as dinner on Wednesday night.

Students will get to take home their own natural starter, kefir grains, a traditional yogurt culture, as well as cheeses they’ve made in class.

Please sign up if your interested