Build the bridge back to sustainable food systems by joining us in this very special opportunity to work along side master cheese maker David Asher, B.C.

You will see the many styles of cheese through the many stages of their evolution. This workshop provides deep insight into how all cheeses can evolve from the very same milk, with the same culture and the same rennet. David will focus on entirely natural methods and a full circle, small-scale cheesemaking: no freeze-dried cultures or synthetic enzymes will be used in any of our makes.


21 - 25 January  2019

@ Roebuck Farm
New Plymouth
New Zealand


David Asher is an organic farmer, farmstead cheese maker and cheese educator based on the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, Canada. A guerrilla cheesemaker, David does not make cheese according to standard industrial philosophies - he explores traditionally cultured and organic methods of cheesemaking.

David offers cheese outreach to communities near and far with the Black Sheep School of Cheesemaking. Through workshops in partnership with food-sovereignty-minded organizations, he shares his distinct cheesemaking style.  His courses teach a cheesemaking method that is natural, DIY, and well suited to the home kitchen or artisanal production. He is the author of The Art of Natural Cheesemaking.
From culture propagation to rennet coagulation and on to affinage, this comprehensive and hands on course covers nearly all aspects and styles of a natural farmhouse cheesemaking.

On the first day we learn to care for the cultures of our cheese. We begin with a session on dairy fermentation, covering Clabber, 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 Geotrichum-candidum ripened lactic cheeses such as Crottin, Valençay and Saint Marcellin. Also included are acid-coagulated cheeses like Skyr and Quark.

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, Burrata and other Pasta Filata cheeses. We also explore the different rind ecologies of rennet cheeses including the white fungus of Camembert and the orange rinds of Limburge.

On the fourth day we make a Stilton,  and explore the cultivation of blue fungus that gives this cheese its veins. With a slight variation in the make we will also prepare Cheddar/Cantal.  On this day, we will also prepare rennet from a young calf’s stomach.
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And on the fifth day we make an Alpine cheese, and see how one cheese can evolve in many different directions including tomme, Comte and Caciocavallo. With its leftover whey we prepare a batch of traditional Ricotta.​



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​This workshop is fully catered with plenty of cheese + beautiful local produce!

Follow David + his Black Sheep School on Instagram

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About your hosts Roebuck Farm

Roebuck Farm is a sustainable & profitable small scale working farm offering the highest quality education, consul & expertise for customers from NZ & across the world, who are interested in sustainable food production on limited land space & often with limited resources.   We encourage & teach the principles of independence & self-sufficiency through highly interactive on-farm activities based around our agrarian & market garden production cycles.

Jodi Roebuck is an international renowned Biointensive Gardening educator and Restoration Grazing consultant.  The 2017/18 season marks his 19th year growing and selecting heritage vegetable seed.  This year sees the expansion of the gardens with 37 new beds going in for vegetable production based on the work of peers Curtis Stone (The Urban Farmer) and Jean-Martin Fortier (The Market Gardener).

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