Why Are Goat’s Cheeses Covered in Ash?

There is something undeniably dramatic about an ash-coated goat’s cheese. With their charcoal-grey rinds and brilliant white interiors, Dazel Ash, Elrick, Brightwell Ash and Driftwood all look rather at home on a Halloween cheeseboard. Yet their gothic appearance gives a slightly misleading impression of what is waiting underneath. These are not smoky, heavy cheeses. They are bright, fresh and often distinctly citrusy, with the ash playing an important part in how their delicate rinds develop.

The use of ash on cheese is much older than the current fashion for striking black and white cheeseboards. It is particularly associated with traditional French goat’s cheeses, where cheesemakers discovered that a coating of ash could help a young, acidic cheese mature successfully. Modern cheesemakers generally use food-grade vegetable ash, but the principle remains rooted in those older methods.

What does ash actually do to cheese?

Fresh goat’s curd is naturally acidic, which gives many young goat’s cheeses their characteristic clean, tangy flavour. That acidity is important, but the surface of the cheese needs to become a hospitable place for the yeasts and moulds that create its rind. Ash is alkaline, so applying a fine layer helps to reduce the acidity at the surface and encourages that rind flora to become established.

You can see the results particularly clearly on cheeses such as Brightwell Ash, made by Norton & Yarrow in Carmarthenshire. Vegetable ash is applied to the young cheese before its rind develops, eventually becoming part of a mottled surface of grey, white and sometimes blue moulds. Beneath it, the paste is smooth and creamy, with citrus, fresh yoghurt and gentle hazelnut notes that become more pronounced as the cheese ripens. 

Ash can also help manage moisture on the surface of a young cheese. This was especially useful to cheesemakers long before precisely controlled maturation rooms existed, but it remains useful today. The coating works alongside the cultures, yeasts, humidity and careful attention of the cheesemaker to create the conditions in which a delicate goat’s cheese can ripen.

Does an ash-coated cheese taste smoky?

This is probably the biggest misconception. A cheese with a dark grey or almost black exterior looks as though it ought to taste of smoke or charcoal, but the ash itself is essentially there for the cheesemaking rather than to provide a dominant flavour. It certainly does not make these cheeses smoked cheeses.

In fact, brightness is one of the characteristics that links many of our favourite examples. Elrick, made by Errington Cheese in South Lanarkshire, has a delicate ash-coated rind surrounding a smooth, creamy cheese with a fudgier centre. Its flavours are distinctly lemony and fresh, with a gentle spiciness that can develop as it ages. The cheese takes its inspiration from the lactic goat’s cheeses of France, making that charcoal exterior a clue to its cheesemaking style rather than its flavour.

Driftwood, from White Lake Cheese in Somerset, tells a similar story. Its ash-covered log has a soft, silky texture and a particularly lovely citrus character, alongside more earthy and peppery notes as the cheese ripens towards the rind. Again, there is a wonderful contrast between the dark, almost rustic surface and the fresh white cheese within. 

From black ash to a living rind

One of the pleasures of these cheeses is that the ash does not necessarily remain a neat, uniform black coating. A cheese rind is a living thing, and as the cheese matures the surface changes. Yeasts and moulds grow across the ash, creating rinds that can become wrinkled, marbled or mottled with shades of white, silver, grey and blue.

Dazel Ash, made by Rosary Goats Cheese in the New Forest, is a particularly striking example. Its edible ash coating develops into a delicate, crinkled black and white rind as the cheese matures, while the interior remains fresh and clean with a citrus tang and gentle earthiness. In 2026 it was named Supreme Champion at the British & Irish Cheese Awards, rather a good reminder that the ash is not simply there to make the cheese look dramatic. 

The contrast is part of what makes these cheeses so appealing. Slice through a dark rind and you find an almost luminous white centre. Depending on the cheese and its stage of maturity, the paste may be chalkier and firmer through the middle, with a softer, creamier layer immediately beneath the rind. That progression in texture is part of the pleasure of eating a ripened goat’s cheese.

Four cheeses, four expressions of ash

Put Dazel Ash, Elrick, Brightwell Ash and Driftwood side by side and there is an obvious family resemblance, but they are certainly not interchangeable. Dazel combines its dramatic marbled rind with fresh citrus and gentle earthy notes. Elrick brings bright lemon and a little spice, with that distinctive fudgy centre. Brightwell is silky and creamy with citrus, yoghurt and hazelnut character, while Driftwood offers a particularly fresh, lemony core alongside pepperier, earthier flavours near its rind. 

They also show how firmly this traditionally French technique has found a home with British cheesemakers. From the New Forest to Somerset, Wales and Scotland, each maker is using ash as part of their own approach to goat’s milk, maturation and rind development rather than simply copying a particular French cheese.

And, admittedly, they do look fantastic at Halloween. Add one to a cheeseboard alongside the deep orange of Red Leicester and the effect is suitably gothic without resorting to novelty cheese. But the appearance is only the beginning. Beneath those dark rinds are cheeses that are bright, lively and delicate, which is precisely what makes the contrast so good.

The ash may provide the drama, but it is the cheese underneath that earns its place on the board.