Cut a slice of camembert-making action

The Canberra Environment Centre will run a camembert-making workshop as part of its locavore series on November 16.

The workshop will be led by Canberran Gurkan Yeniceri, who is a fascinating guy judging by his blog (homecheesemaker.wordpress.com).

Yeniceri has a beehive and makes his own bread, cheese, sausages, vinegar, beer, jam, yoghurt, and olives, he says, and is making salami and other cured meats. In sum, he’s doing his best to live a sustainable life.

He’s been making camembert since 2009, with horrible results at first but, as an engineer, he worked out the technical side of camembert and now has a recipe that works.

It comes down to stable temperature and humidity control, and a good culture (which prevents ‘‘slip skin’’, which sounds obscure but is very unappealing), and avoiding contamination – so you should buy cultures, he suggests, rather than trying to harvest them from other cheeses.

Yeniceri also has a Turkish cheesemaking blog. Saturday, November 16, at the YMCA Bush Capital Lodge in O’Connor, 10am-1pm, $80, workshops@ecoaction.com.au.