Velocheese Smoked Scamorza

Velocheese’s Smoked Scamorza has a firm, but elastic texture with a brown waxy skin. The flavour is more pronounced than the company’s standard Scamorza with slightly sweet, smoky notes from the maple wood.

Davide Tani, founder of Velocheese, is originally from Cagliari in Sardinia, Italy, and studied cheesemaking in Puglia. He moved to Belfast with his Northern Irish wife in 2015 and started Velocheese, producing pasta filata cheeses, before going into business with local cheesemonger Indie Füde. Together they have set up a dairy and shop at Banana Block – a museum, events space and small business hub in a historic linen mill in East Belfast.

Tani is passionate about engineering and cycling (‘velo’ comes from ‘velomobile’ – a type of  bicycle-car that he designs) and plans to deliver cheese in Belfast by bicycle.

The scamorza is made by hand, using starter cultures and animal rennet to create a curd, which is then cut and scalded at 40ºC to remove some of the whey. The curd is then removed from the whey and salted, before being stretched in 90ºC hot water to achieve an elastic texture. Pieces of the curd are then fashioned into pear shapes, which are  hung by string in a maturing room for one week at 80% humidity and 15ºC. The cheese is then cold smoked over maple wood and wrapped in compostable film.

The smoked cheese works well with full-bodied reds such as Nero d’Avola and Primitivo, and adds depth to baked pasta dishes.