affinage

Affinage is an old art, it is the aging, curing and finishing of cheese. There is as much skill in the art as there is in the actual cheesemaking. Through managing temperature and humidity, sometimes washing or smoking or rolling, the affineur is able to bring out the very best in the cheese and to release it for sale when it is just right. That all may not sound very complicated, but cheeses are living things that change and batch to batch vary depending on a myriad of factors. The study and practice of affinage in Canada is in its infancy and aboutcheese.ca is beginning its own program to develop the capabilities of our staff. We have three special results so far: provincial smoke, blue haze and snow goose. Provincial smoke is a specially selected raw milk cheddar cheese which cold smoke over a maple and the result is fine an nuanced smoky flavour with a cheddar tang. Blue haze is our favourite blue cheese that we also cold smoke yielding a roundness to the blue flavour if there ever was a cheese for scotch, this is it. Finally snow goose is a triple cream bloomy rind cheese that is specially made for us and we age to perfect ripeness. There are several more cheeses in the works and we look forward to telling you about them as they are perfected.