Cheddar-style cheese
A pressed cheese whose curd is cooked slowly, then cheddared: kept warm in slabs that are turned and stacked for hours before milling, salting and pressing.
Built structures · Kettles, coppers and boilers
Custom brewery used as a nested cheese vat (Hamblyn)
Hamblyn double boiler
New Zealand home cheesemaker Tony Hamblyn's custom brewery, in which a 50-litre cheese pot hangs in a 70-litre mash tun of circulated hot water; later one tank served purely as hot water.
Overview
Tony Hamblyn turned a home brewery into a jacketed cheese vat. A 50-litre cheese pot hangs in a 70-litre mash tun of circulated hot water. Heating is even, and the pot wall never exceeds the water temperature.
A later update describes the brewery after three years of brewing, cheesemaking and sous-vide cooking. It pasteurises, cools, and holds cheeses at a chosen ripening temperature.
Sources for this section
How it works
Hot water circulates around a still pot of milk, so the milk heats without stirring during the set. The cost is speed: more than an hour to bring 25 to 30 L of milk to 72 °C (162 °F).
Sources for this section
Later layout
The later layout has the right-hand tank purely for hot water, the cheese tanks on a low table, the left-hand tank for brewing only, and one wall box that controls temperature. Cheeses ripened in a three-door display fridge at 12 °C (54 °F) and 90% humidity.
Sources for this section
Documented cheeses
The updates list the cheeses made in the brewery: halloumi, cultured mozzarella and burrata, ricotta, feta-style cheese and cheddar. The sources give no method for them here.
Sources for this section
Measuring and limits
Measure the milk at the centre with a probe. An infrared gun reads only the surface.
One maker's custom build is documented. No milk temperature curves, water volumes, support loads or cleaning routine were published. The sources do not show that a commercial all-in-one brewer accepts a second pot. The pot's material and the milk probe are not stated.
Sources for this section
History
New England Cheesemaking Supply's 2017 interview describes the double boiler. A later update describes the brewery after three years of brewing, cheesemaking and sous-vide cooking. Neither dates the start of the custom build beyond those points.
Site
SettingA home brewery in New Zealand, built around a double boiler: a 50-litre cheese pot hangs inside a 70-litre mash tun of circulated hot water.
NotesNo room dimensions are given. Later layout: a separate hot-water tank, cheese tanks on a low table, a brewing-only tank, and one wall box for temperature control. Cheeses ripened in a three-door display fridge at 12 °C (54 °F) and 90% humidity.
A build is made where it stands: moving it means building it again.
How it is built
Risks and precautions · Standard risk
Variation in farm milk
Hamblyn reports that farm milk varies in its flora, so he pasteurised it before use.
Hazard sourcePasteurise the farm milk before use.
Control sourceMaterials
- 1 L 70-litre brewing pot (mash tun) — The false bottom is removed. It holds circulated hot water around the cheese pot.
- 1 L 50-litre cheese pot — Dropped inside the mash tun with its handles resting on the rim.
- Pump and gravity return — Water heated in the pot left of the control box flows by gravity to the double boiler and is pumped back. A return ball valve regulates flow.
- 1 PID temperature controller in a control box — Holds the temperature. A built-in timer runs recipe steps.
- Thermometer and infrared gun — The probe reads the milk centre. The infrared gun reads only the surface.
- Build the brewery from the 70-litre pots, and remove the false bottom from the mash tun.
- Drop the 50-litre cheese pot inside the mash tun, with its handles resting on the rim.
- Heat water in the pot left of the control box. Let it flow by gravity to the double boiler, and pump it back.
- Set the PID controller and the timer for the recipe steps.
- Probe the milk at the centre. Expect more than an hour to bring 25 to 30 L of milk to 72 °C (162 °F); start heating the water before the milk is collected.
Places
New Zealand
Documented use · Country evidenceTony Hamblyn's custom brewery, documented in 2017 and in a later update. The sources do not give a locality.
Related
Used for
Feta-style brined cheese
White cheese made with a lactic starter and rennet, drained without pressing, dry-salted and covered in brine. This home adaptation allows whole milk from different dairy animals.
Read more
Cheese in the brewhouse: a brewing kettle as water jacket, hot-water tank and whey cooker
A home brewing kettle can hold a cheese pot in hot water, supply wash water and reheat whey. This is what two brewer manuals allow, and which cheeses show each job.
More from New Zealand
Brewer as a hot-water service station
The brewer holds clean water at a set temperature for washed-curd cheeses and other hot-water jobs, beside a separate cheese pot, instead of heating milk directly.
Fridge cheese cave with individual ripening boxes
A modern cheese-ripening space made by controlling the temperature of a refrigerator or display cabinet and managing each cheese in its own covered container. It is an appliance conversion, not a natural cave or a traditional structure.
Hāngī pit
A source-specific account of the shallow earth oven used by a Ngāi Tahu family at Arowhenua Marae, with its hot stones, woven rourou and earth cover.
Pātaka
Māori raised storehouses held preserved food and seed. Heritage New Zealand documents one rare, uncarved Ngāti Hauiti example at Rata; its materials and later relocation are specific to that structure.
Rua kūmara
Rua kūmara are underground Māori stores for whole kūmara. Research at Pūrākaunui, authorized by Pūrākaunui Block Inc. and Kāti Huirapa Rūnaka ki Puketeraki, documents 15th-century pits without establishing one design.
Supported pot inside a water bath
A food pot held at a fixed height inside a larger vessel of controlled hot water: the water distributes heat while the milk or whey inside stays still and away from the heater.
Whata (raised storage platform)
Whata are raised Māori food-storage platforms or stages. Sources describe temporary storage and drying, while recorded forms and terminology vary.
Modern era
'Nduja di Spilinga
Soft, spreadable Calabrian pork sausage made with a great deal of red chilli and fatty pork, stuffed into natural casings, sometimes smoked and matured while staying soft.
A measured dehydrator retrofit
A way to add independent temperature logging to an existing food dehydrator without changing its built-in controls or protections. It is a monitoring method, not a rewiring plan.
Abalone mushroom
Pleurotus cystidiosus is the abalone mushroom, a cultivated oyster-type fungus with dark brown caps that grows more slowly and is more demanding than other Pleurotus species.
Aceto Balsamico di Modena IGP
A dark, balanced vinegar from Emilia-Romagna made by combining cooked or concentrated grape must with wine vinegar, then acetifying and refining it in wood under a protected specification.
Active sour-cream starter
A living dairy inoculum that starts controlled cream fermentation, developing acidity and aroma before sour cream or cultured butter is finished.
Adjustable yogurt-maker
A small electric incubator holds jars at a selected temperature for yogurt and other documented warm food preparations. Controls, capacity and vessel arrangement vary by model.
Adygean salt
Adygean salt is a seasoned table salt associated with Adygea and the wider North Caucasian culinary tradition. Salt is blended with garlic and a variable selection of herbs and spices; the exact mix depends on the named style and maker.
African Caesar-group mushroom
The African Caesar-group mushroom, Amanita masasiensis, is a wild ectomycorrhizal species of central and southern African woodlands, eaten locally. The genus contains deadly poisonous species, so identification needs care.
Community
No community contributions have been published for this entry yet.
Share what you made
Sign in to contribute. Published comments and photos are free to read.
Sources
New England Cheesemaking Supply Company (cheesemaking.com)Documented use
Tony Hamblyn Cheesemaker in New ZealandCited in: Overview; How it works; Measuring and limits
New England Cheesemaking Supply Company (cheesemaking.com)Documented use
Tony Hamblyn in New Zealand UpdateCited in: Overview; Later layout; Documented cheeses; Measuring and limits