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SKYR yoghurt
Our skyr team travelled to the geothermal farmlands of Iceland to be trained in the art of traditional skyr making by master skyr maker, Thorgrimur. This is our own interpretation of an iconic staple of the Icelandic diet, handmade here on our Suffolk farm, from the fresh morning milk of our free ranging Montbeliarde herd. We don’t add anything “extra” to our yoghurts. No milk powder, no thickeners, no stabilisers, nothing like that. Just our own skimmed cows milk, straight from the same day’s milking. Making it the traditional way is a lot more labour intensive. To achieve that beautifully silky texture and creamy consistency, we gently strain our skyr through natural cheesecloths. This creates a completely natural finish and preserves the delicate milky flavours. We have teamed up with the amazing England Preserves, to bring you a series of layered skyrs, using their artisan fruit compotes.
Our Skyr is available in the following flavours:
Natural | Gooseberry and Elderflower | Blackcurrant | Redcurrant, Rhubarb and Vanilla. All flavours are available in 400g tubs for sharing (or not, if you’re like us). Catering sizes also available in Natural.
What is our secret?
Most cheese and dairy produce is made away from the farm. It’s actually surprisingly rare to find a business today that controls the whole process from start to finish. Here are our 3 secrets:
Control
We grow our own forage and grazing right here in the surrounding landscape. We care for every cow in our herd as an individual and we care for our precious milk from the moment it leaves the cow. What we take from the land we then put back again. We call this circular farming.
Proximity
Within minutes of the morning milking, our fresh milk is already in the making rooms just a few metres away. Within hours it is being made into cheese and butter. Our milk doesn’t spend time being transported meaning our produce retains all the incredible characteristics of our fresh milk.
Gentleness
Our unique set up allows our milk to be gently gravity fed from the milking parlour into the making rooms next door. We choose to make our produce by hand, avoiding the use of big industrial dairy equipment. No piece of machinery can imitate the gentleness of a true artisan, who really cares.
The making of Skyr
We travelled to Iceland to learn the art of traditional skyr making. Read on to discover how we hand make the Icelandic speciality yoghurt here on our Suffolk farm.
1
The skyr making process begins in the same way as buttermaking, when we separate the cream from the milk to achieve the skimmed (fat-free) milk necessary for making a traditional Icelandic-style skyr. The skimmed milk is then gravity-fed into a large stainless steel vat, where we heat it to a high temperature. This heating process helps to create a silky consistency in the finished yoghurt.
2
We bring the temperature back down again to allow us to add our carefully selected strains of lactic cultures to the milk. These live bacteria instantly get to work acidifying the milk. By the following morning, the milk in the vat has set and now resembles an enormous self-set yoghurt. At this point, we stir the yoghurt until it becomes a fine mush.
3
True to the traditional Icelandic method, we pour the yoghurt into straining tables with muslin cloth laid inside.
4
We stir the contents of the muslin cloth for several hours by hand as the yoghurt thickens.
5
After a time, the skyr yoghurt becomes thick with a silky texture.
6
When it’s ready to eat, we pour the finished yoghurt into our yoghurt dispenser, ready to fill the yoghurt pots.
7
For our layered skyrs, we add delicious fruit conserves from England Preserves to the pot first.
8
The pots are then filled carefully, to keep the preserves and the yoghurt from mixing in the pot.
9
Finally, the lids go on and our finished skyr yoghurts are ready for the chiller.
