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Cheese from Made on the family's farm in Wales, then moved to England

Gorwydd Caerphilly

Gorwydd is a farmhouse Caerphilly made by the Trethowan brothers from raw, organic cow milk, first on a Welsh farm and later in Somerset. The milk is warmed gently with a culture, set with rennet, cut, salted, packed into cloth-lined moulds and pressed, then matures about two months or more under a natural rind. Under the rind a soft, mushroomy layer forms around a crumbly, lemony centre.

Fully documentedCheese42 days – 2 monthsnone; made outside the Traditional Welsh Caerphilly PGI area since the move to EnglandFamily: Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe Trethowans publish no recipe, so the sources give no amounts or process figures. Only the maturing time is the farm's own.
Raw organic cow milk, morning and evening milk mixedMixing the two milkings gives a creamier cheese[lfm-trethowan][pong-visit][slowfood-trethowan]
Starter culture[pong-visit][nyd-gorwydd]
Traditional animal rennet[lfm-trethowan]
Salt[pong-visit]
Starterstarter culture; traditional animal rennet

Total time across the recorded steps: 42 days – 2 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Starter goes into gently warmed raw milk and begins to sour it

Step 1 of 5
Warm the raw milk and add culture
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The organic raw milk, morning and evening milk mixed, runs by gravity into the vat and is warmed gently before a culture goes in. Output: warmed, cultured raw milk.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Gorwydd is a farmhouse Caerphilly made by the Trethowan brothers from raw, organic cow milk, first on a Welsh farm and later in Somerset. The milk is warmed gently with a culture, set with rennet, cut, salted, packed into cloth-lined moulds and pressed, then matures about two months or more under a natural rind. Under the rind a soft, mushroomy layer forms around a crumbly, lemony centre. Made in 5 steps over 42 days – 2 months. The longest step, mature under a natural rind, takes 42 days – 2 months (London Farmers' Markets). L. lactis subsp. cremoris and L. lactis subsp. diacetylactis, named as starter strains in the Traditional Welsh Caerphilly PGI specification does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step42 days – 2 monthsReported[lfm-trethowan][pong-visit]Mature under a natural rind

What makes this one different

The Welsh PGI Caerphilly is made to be eaten young, from 10 days. Gorwydd is made from raw milk and matured about two months or more under a natural rind, so a soft, mushroomy layer grows in from the rind around a crumbly, lemony centre.

Size
Whole wheels of about 3.5–4.1 kg
Maturing
About two months or more
Welsh PGI Caerphilly, for comparison
Ready from 10 days old and may be kept up to 6 months
Milk
Raw, organic cow milk, morning and evening milk mixed

Related ferments

Safety

Made from raw milk. In laboratory raw-milk Caerphilly, Mycobacterium bovis was concentrated in the curd and fell only slowly during maturing, with D-values (the time for a tenfold fall) of 59 days (high inoculum) and 24 days (low inoculum); more starter and faster acid development improved its inactivation.

Hazards the sources name: Mycobacterium bovis, studied in laboratory raw-milk Caerphilly (not in Gorwydd itself).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Todd Trethowan learned to make Caerphilly from the Somerset cheesemaker Chris Duckett and began making it with his brother Maugan on their parents' farm in Wales. They later moved the dairy to Puxton Court Farm in North Somerset, where they added a cheddar (begun in 2017, by Slow Food's account).

  1. [caerphilly-pgi] Defra, Traditional Welsh Caerphilly / Traditional Welsh Caerffili PGI product specification, section 4.5 method of productionspec
  2. [lfm-trethowan] London Farmers' Markets, producer page 'Trethowan's Dairy and Puxton Court Farm'web
  3. [pong-visit] Pong Cheese, blog 'Meet The Makers... Trethowan's Dairy', 18 February 2023web
  4. [nyd-gorwydd] Neal's Yard Dairy (maturer and seller), Gorwydd Caerphilly product pageweb
  5. [slowfood-trethowan] Slow Food in the UK, Trethowan's Dairy producer profileweb
  6. [forgrave2016] Forgrave R., Donaghy J.A., Fisher A., Rowe M.T. 2016, Survival kinetics of Mycobacterium bovis during manufacture and ripening of raw milk Cheddar and Caerphilly cheese produced on a laboratory-scale, Journal of Applied Microbiology 121:1457–1468 (abstract)paper