Borough Market Diaries: how we make alpine cheese in a Bermondsey railway arch

“I suppose the name is a bit of a pun,” grins Bill Oglethorpe, the owner of Borough Market’s Kappacasein cheese stall and raclette stand. “I was hard pressed to make cheese in Bermondsey.” It’s not a feat to be sniffed at. Though there are a few more cheesemakers based in London today, back when Bill started making cheese in a converted railway arch in Bermondsey in 2000, he was something of a pioneer.

Bermondsey Hard Pressed was the first cheese he made, using a 100-year-old copper vat he brought over from Switzerland. A hard, alpine-style cheese modelled on L’Etivaz (Bill spent months working with veteran cheesemakers in the eponymous town before establishing Kappacasein), its long maturation time of 12 to 18 months – ”though I do get impatient sometimes, at 11 months,” he confesses – makes it well suited to the low, steady temperatures of the arch: even if “an alpage in the mountains in June, with a pasture full of wild flowers that have never been cultivated, would really be the ideal”.

The cheesemaking process starts in the back of Bill’s specially adapted van. “We put the starter in when we collect the milk from the farm in Kent,” he says. “The milk is still warm from the cow, so the ripening takes place on the way back to Bermondsey. By the time it gets here, it’s ready.” A little bit of heat, to bring it up to 33C, some activated calves’ rennet, and “the acidification can start”.

Hard pressed isn’t just a pun, it is also a classification of cheese. “You have un-pressed – cheeses that are drained – semi-pressed, and hard-pressed cheeses.” By pressing and heating, he continues, you reduce the percentage of moisture in the cheese. “That means it can age for longer,” Bill explains, “because it is drier and more stable.”

The press Kappacasein uses – a big, heavy thing, also hailing from Etivaz – is a hard taskmaster, as Bill has come to realise increasingly. “We’ve been making some of our wheels too small, and as a result I think we were over-pressing. The system is built for big cheeses, so we’ve started making ours bigger, so they can withstand the weight and reach the right texture.”

The wheels are washed and turned twice a week throughout their maturation. The result is a cheese with a flavour characterised by its sweet nuttiness and a firm, pliable texture. It’s perfect on a cheeseboard, but it is – like many alpine cheeses – it’s pretty special when melted as well.