British with a capital BRIE

The Gaylard family are just mad about cheese. Dad John, sons Chris, Martin, Jonathan and daughter Amanda eat, breathe and sleep cheese at Cornish Country Larder. 'It's fair to say that we are all a bit crazy about cheese here,' says Chris, 'but it's a hugely exciting thing to make - there are just so many different things you can do with the one basic ingredient: milk.'

The company was founded 10 years ago by John. He was previously a farmer, but the advent of milk quotas made his dairy farm unviable. One by one, his four children caught their father's passion for good cheese, and joined the family firm. Waitrose was its first customer, and it was a suggestion from the Waitrose cheese buyer at the time that led them to create the soft, creamy mould-ripened cheeses that have now become their speciality: 'We were asked to make an organic Brie,' recalls John. 'No one in this country was making an organic Brie in any quantity then, and we weren't sure if we could, but we never say that something can't be done until we've proved it!'

Exciting times

After sourcing the organic milk, they set about meeting Soil Association production standards. These, among other things, require that the organic cheese is made first every day, that the whole system is rinsed through between organic and conventional batches, and that organic and conventional ingredients, and finished cheeses are kept separate. 'It was a lot of work, and it still is - we have to be re-certified every year,' explains Chris. 'But we were excited about having the chance to create a cheese that wouldn't be mass-produced, that would have a bit of character. To me, making something like Cheddar is easy - once it's made, it's made. But with Brie, you've got lots of extra stages, and at any one, something can go wrong. It's a much more temperamental product - but when you get a good one, nothing beats it.'

Gently does it

Produced at their creamery overlooking the sea near Newquay, the organic Brie is made entirely from Cornish organic milk. Delivered daily, it's piped into small vats where the starter culture is added. 'Using smaller vats makes it easier to treat it gently,' explains John. 'It's a delicate cheese, so everything we do has to be slow and careful.' After adding rennet, the milk sets into a soft, squishy curd, which is hand-cut with wires. 'The milk is different every day,' says head cheesemaker Paul Nicholls, 'so you have to know by looking at it whether you need to allow a little bit longer, or cut the curd a bit earlier.'

Drained and put into moulds, the cheeses are left overnight, before being bathed in brine the following morning.

This stage, says John, is where the true character begins to develop: 'You can use dry salt, but we think brine gives the best flavour - it's the way the best French Bries are made,' he explains. 'The organic Brie has its own dedicated vats, and we use a stock brine, which means it's basically been the same liquid since we first started. That's what adds character and makes this cheese taste different to the same cheese if it was made a few miles down the road.' A filtration system keeps the brine pure and clean and, just to make sure, it's tested every day in the creamery's own lab.

After drying off for 24 hours, the cheeses are placed in one of six cool, dark ripening rooms for 9-12 days, where they grow their jackets of velvety white mould. Peeking inside a ripening room filled with racks of two-day-old Brie, the air smells deliciously of fresh cream and grass; further down the line, there's the characteristic mushroomy aroma as the cheese ripens. They're then matured in the cold store for two to three weeks, before being delivered to Waitrose depots. 'Even now, there's a real buzz when I go into a shop and see our cheeses,' says John. 'There isn't one I don't like - I don't think we could make anything we didn't feel passionate about.'

Taking on the french

Seven years on from creating their first Brie, the family has taken on a new challenge. 'When we first started making Brie, we were just aiming to make a nice, creamy cheese,' says Chris. 'But over the years, goalposts move, and we were challenged by Chris Dawson, Waitrose cheese buyer, for four years to make some really strong, pungent soft cheeses that could compete with the best French ones.' The result is Llawnroc Camembert and Brie, both developed especially for Waitrose: 'They've got the complex flavours you'd expect from an unpasteurised cheese, but we've made them with pasteurised milk,' explains Chris Gaylard. 'But they're not a French-style product with an English label. We've put our own stamp on them as well.'

As we sample the results, the soft, new Camembert disappears faster than you can say 'entente cordiale', and it's obvious that being surrounded by cheese all day every day hasn't made anyone here at the farm lose their taste for it. 'We always have a fresh cheese open somewhere in the office, and if we open one in the morning, it'll be completely gone by lunchtime, just from people picking off bits as they come in and out,' says Chris. 'That's when you know you're doing something right.'