Cheesemaker using Fleckvieh milk

Rachel Needoba aims for quality over quantity in the cheese she handmakes for Butterfly Factory and has found Fleckvieh milk has a wholesome density to it and describes its distinct texture as velvety. PHOTO: Guy Lavoiepierre

Raches uses Fleckvieh milk from John and Irene Crawford’s dairy in Darnum, West Gippsland to make cheese for Buttefly Factory. PHOTO: Supplied

Lactic curd on the draining table at Butterfly Factory. PHOTO: Rachel Needoba

Cheesemaker uses Fleckvieh milk to establish her burgeoning business

By Jacinta Cummins

WHEN it comes to making cheese, there’s a lot more to it than just using any old milk to create a product.

Caseiculture, the official term for crafting cheese, is as much an understanding of microbiology and food chemistry as it is about craftsmanship.

Like most things in agriculture, you only reap what you sow and according to West Gippsland cheesemaker Rachel Needoba, cheese is only as good as the milk used to make it.

So when she established her micro-dairy, The Butterfly Factory, finding the right milk was crucial to success.

Although her initial premises weren’t suitable for maturing cheese so she started bottling milk and making butter, cultured cream and yoghurt to sell, Rachel wanted milk which would be suitable to make cheese when she had the facilities to do so.

“Quality over quantity has been a big distinction with the Butterfly Factory,” she explained.

The milk had to be of the highest quality, come from cows which were grassfed only and she had to know its provenance.

The herd’s diet was important because silage can contain bacteria that doesn’t affect drinking milk but which can cause defects in cheese as it continues to grow and can cause the cheese to “blow out” during the maturing process, resulting in a misshapen product.

While Diary Food Safety Victoria requires testing for bacteria borne pathogens such as listeria, salmonella and Staphylococcus (Staph) to prevent food poisoning, they don’t examine physical defects such as these, but these defects can change a cheese’s taste, texture and smell.

Rachel says this all contributes to the consumption experience and enjoyment of cheese.

“For me it’s about your environment shaping what you make rather than picking a product and then working out how to make it,” she said.

“I fell in love with farmhouse cheese in France years ago and it is very much influenced by what cows perform best in that area so you find the milk used to make cheese differs region to region and results in distinctive cheeses which represent that area.

“I wanted to work with what was available locally and that was Fleckvieh milk.

“I loved how the Fleckvieh was a dual purpose animal used for milk and meat in Europe.

“I didn’t know anyone using it to make cheese when I started out, but the breed is closely related to Montbeliarde which is renowned for cheesemaking so I knew it would suit.”

Rachel had heard of dairy farmer Rob Monk through Tamsin Carvan.

Tamsin ran a boutique plate to paddock eatery called Tamsin’s Table at Poowong East which served food predominantly grown and cooked onsite, but Tamsin used milk from Rob’s neighbouring farm.

Given Tamsin’s glowing reviews, Rob sprang to mind when Rachel was looking for milk.

She described the first time she tasted it.

“It had a velvety texture to it,” she recalled.

“There was a density and a distinctive flavour and character which was really important to me.”

Rob milked once daily and had an alternative approach to dairying in which animal health was paramount.

Mastitis which is the most common health problem for dairy herds causes changes in the chemical composition of milk which can affect clotting and whey drainage, some of the steps in making cheese.

Mastitis decreases overall cheese yield and can change texture and flavour because of enzymatic activities in the milk, so Rachel needed to be sure she wasn’t using milk which came from cows with mastitis.

When she started using Rob’s milk at the Butterfly Factory in 2017, she couldn’t keep up with the customer demand.

“People were really taken with the products because they were flavourful and richly textured.

“Our bodies recognise food that is nutrient dense which not only tastes good, but nourishes us.

“I think that as the nourishing quality of food has reduced over the years as production has become more industrialised, when people do get to taste wholesome, natural food they really appreciate it.”

Rachel started making lactic curd cheese in 2019 as it is sold fresh and doesn’t need maturing.

She started making them for restaurants, providores and cheesemongers in Melbourne.

The cheese has also been regularly ordered for “The MOULD Cheese Collective’s” cheese boxes, a subscription service that delivers boxes with four artisan cheeses made in different styles from different milk in different regions to customers each month to showcase Australian cheese.

But all good things must come to an end eventually and in 2020, Rob Monk retired.

Losing her Fleckvieh milk supply also coincided with Covid-19 and the lease ending on Rachel’s factory in Warragul.

It was make or break for Butterfly Factory, but Rachel chose to go into hiatus instead.

Then fate or luck intervened.

Rachel believes it was the universe which brought her into contact with John and Irene Crawford who also have a Fleckvieh herd in a neighbouring town.

Although it came from the same breed of cow, their milk had a different taste to the Fleckvieh milk Rachel had started out using for her cheese.

This could be due to a difference in the type and amount of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) which research has shown can be transferred from grass to milk and finally to cheese.

“The Crawfords milk Fleckvieh because they are dual purpose and they shared Rob’s commitment to animal husbandry which really shows in the milk’s quality and taste,” Rachel said.

So in 2021, like a caterpillar emerging from its chrysalis as a butterfly, the Butterfly Factory came back to life.

Rachel successfully applied for funding from the Victorian Government’s Small Scale Craft Grant Program.

When she received the grant, she and Bill used it to convert part of a winemaking shed on their 40 acre farm into a small cheesemaking factory.

It has three maturing rooms: a hastening room, one for geotrichem mould and one for longer aging cheese like Raclettes.

Raclette cheese is a semi-hard cows’ milk cheese that takes about three months to mature.

It shares its name with the Swiss dish where the cheese is heated and then scraped off for serving.

Instead of offering a range of dairy products as she did in Butterfly Factory’s early days, Rachel now only makes cheese.

This allows her to focus on refining and consolidating her processes so her products are immediately recognisable as a Butterfly Factory Monkery or Chamela.

She collects the milk from the Fleckvieh dairy the morning the day she is making cheese and then puts it through a 100 litre batch pasteuriser to prepare it for the process.

“The pasteuriser seems ridiculously small at times, but it’s nearly a full time workload once I make a batch of raclette and then the lactic cheeses which are a four day process,” she said.

Rachel reflected that her learning process has been a steep one with factors like the cows’ lactation cycles directly affecting the cheese yield.

Before the cows were dried off for two months in June 100 litres of their milk would make about 15 kilograms, but using the same recipe this had dropped back to 10kgs by November.

But despite these challenges, she feels fortunate to be able to pursue her passion.

“It’s been an amazing learning process and I feel very lucky to have come across producers who are so passionate about their milk,” Rachel said.

“The Fleckvieh really does have a flavour and texture which sets it apart from other milk.

“It has the qualities you need to make cheese which has a real sense of the place where it’s made and this is why I am making it: to make a product which can be identified with the area it’s from.”