The Science of Cheese - Ri Science Podcast with Bronwen Percival

To celebrate National Cheese Day earlier this month, we sat down with biochemist and cheese expert Bronwen Percival to look under the barrel at the science of one of the nation’s favourite foods. From the basics of cheese production to the biochemistry underlying its notorious smell, and even some cheese tastings, this video podcast episode guarantees to open your eyes to the captivating world of cheese. Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYeF244yNGuFefuFKqxIAXw/join Subscribe to our podcast here for all the episodes: https://open.spotify.com/show/3zfY0yzdW6UUfNmV4S4DjU 0:00 Introduction 0:58 The basics of cheese 3:15 The fermentation process 4:44 The power of salt 5:20 Cheese tasting 6:35 Why does cheese smell? 9:15 The history of cheese 10:45 Tasting St James cheese 13:07 How do we choose the right microbes? 16:11 What can we learn from cheese 20:06 The ‘goaty’ flavour of Goat’s cheese 21:23 The biggest threat to artisanal cheese 26:20 Becoming a cheese scientist Bronwen Percival is the cheese buyer for Neal’s Yard Dairy in London. In addition to working with cheesemakers and the company’s maturation team to select and optimize the quality of the cheese they sell, she works to mobilize collaboration between cheesemakers and the scientific community. In 2012, she instigated a biennial conference on the Science of Artisan Cheese. In early 2014, she spent two months in the Dutton Lab at Harvard University studying the role of marine-associated Proteobacteria on cheese rinds. Along with Dr. Benjamin Wolfe, she co-founded the website MicrobialFoods.org, a scientific resource for producers, purveyors, and enthusiasts of artisan microbial foods, and more recently she served on the editorial board of the Oxford Companion to Cheese. The Ri is on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ri_science and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/royalinstitution and TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ri_science Listen to the Ri podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ri-science-podcast Donate to the RI and help us bring you more lectures: https://www.rigb.org/support-us/donate-ri Our editorial policy: https://www.rigb.org/editing-ri-talks-and-moderating-comments Subscribe for the latest science videos: http://bit.ly/RiNewsletter Product links on this page may be affiliate links which means it won't cost you any extra but we may earn a small commission if you decide to purchase through the link.