This is a follow through to an article we posted a year ago – Eric Olson’s Amazing Home Set-Up. At that time, Eric Olson was using his skills in welding stainless steel to make and modify the equipment needed to make cheese. We started doing updates to that article, but Eric works so fast that we decided to put the updates we have and the new ones in one separate article. We’ll keep adding to this until it becomes time to start another article.
At that time of the first article, Eric was living in Oregon, but he has since moved. The text below consists of emails he sent us during this past year.
9/13/2017
I have moved to Nevada and have spent some time setting up a more efficient cheese making room.
I have a lot more room now.
The equipment is now on stationary stainless shelves.
I made a new heated drain table that works better than the old one, it allows me to stack the cheddar slabs higher.
Why did you move to Nevada?
We decided to move to Nevada because of a great job opportunity for my wife. After being in Oregon for 13 years, the economic situation just didn’t look to be improving.
10/19/2017
New draining table in action:
Cheddar
At this point, Eric was having a hard time with his cheddar…
I’ve almost got it perfected, well as good as I can get it. It tastes fine but I am struggling with the moisture content. I’m cutting the curd small, using 3/8” knives and I tried cooking it a little longer this time as well. It does seem a little better than last time. I am only guessing, but I may be fighting a losing battle because I am using Jersey milk and I know it isn’t the best for cheddar. I wish I had more options for raw milk but unfortunately, I don’t. I guess I should just be happy that I have access to raw milk at all because it is highly regulated here and there are not a lot of dairy farmers.
Can you skim some cream off the top?
Actually, I can take off whatever comes to the top of the jars. That’s a great idea. I didn’t even think about taking the cream off the top to lower the fat content a bit.
I don’t have much experience with the small batch cheese making using milk from only a couple cows. (I am learning something new with every batch and it’s getting easier.) Large batch commercial milk was pretty consistent from what I remember, but it has been over 20 years ago.
I did learn very quickly that the smaller the batch size, the more critical it is that the amount of starter is perfect. I ended up needing a very accurate scale to measure out the exact amount of starter to keep things consistent from batch to batch. Using different sized measuring spoons just wasn’t cutting it. I needed to be consistent down to the tenth of a gram.
Are you selling your cheese?
I was trading some for milk in Oregon. Now I just plan to try and age some and eat it. I will also share it if it is good enough. I am also experimenting with my father’s recipe and I am trying to work out some of the ideas for it that we came up with but didn’t get to try out while he was alive.
11/1/2017
I just wanted to let you know that I took about 1 quart of cream off of 4 gallons of milk and it made a huge difference. I will know more after the press is done but from how the curd looked after milling, I would say it is going to be really close to what I am expecting.
I just took this photo after pressing for 2 hrs. I am going to put on the second weight and press over night. Hopefully this will turn out perfect.
What are you going to do with all that luscious cream?
I am going to make butter out of it.
Well, I made butter but I must have let the cream sour a little too long. It doesn’t taste very good. Oh well, next time.
Note:
Around that time, Eric decided to work toward selling his cheese.
12/11/2017
So, as I’m trying to get licensed as a dairy, I have hit a little snag. It is basically impossible to get raw cow’s milk when working with such a small volume. This has been a worry of mine since the beginning. The Nevada Dairy Commission did give me a little hope though, they set me up with a guy who sells raw frozen sheep’s milk. This makes it legal for me to transport the milk, so now I just need to do some experimenting with the milk.
I will be making my father’s recipes, cheddar cheese, and I will also be trying out a blue cheese recipe because I hear that is an excellent cheese to make from sheep’s milk.
Here are pictures of my thawing set-up:
2/4/2018
I just wanted to send you an update. I have been working on remodeling part of my garage and turning it into a small licensed make-room. The project is almost complete, I just have to install the doors and go through the licensing process.
What made you decide to start selling your cheese?
I have been rolling around the idea to try and market my father’s cheese for quite some time now, pretty much ever since I started making it again. The cheese that he made is very unique and I wanted to ensure that his recipe stayed in the family so I figured the best way to ensure that is to control the entire process at home. What started out as me teaching my brother the cheese making process and how to make our father’s recipe rekindled my desire for cheese making and turned into a fully functioning micro cheese making facility. Because I had the thought about possibly taking the cheese to market from the very beginning, I only built and purchased equipment that could be legally used.
I was looking into getting the make-room up to code and licensed in Oregon and everything was looking good except for the problem of getting milk. Raw milk is highly regulated, and I found that there was no way to get such a small amount of milk delivered to me. I also found out that not only would it be impossible to haul the milk myself, there was no local access to raw milk. The only dairy around had a strict policy in place not allowing them to sell raw milk to anyone, so at that point I had all but given up on getting licensed.
I didn’t know it at the time, but our move to Nevada came with a real blessing. After setting up the make-room in my garage in Nevada (because even if I couldn’t market the cheese, there was no way I was ever going to quit making it), I decided to at least see what the rules were like here. It started out with the same result – I could bring the room up to code and use my home as a small business but there was the same problem with getting milk – impossible. But after showing some frustration, the state inspector I was talking to just happened to ask if I was stuck on the idea of using only cow’s milk. She mentioned that there is a sheep milk operation not too far from where I am located that sells frozen sheep’s milk and that I could legally haul that milk myself. Plus, to my surprise, it is frozen in individual bags weighing roughly 43 pounds or 5 gallons which is perfect for me. I had never even considered using sheep’s milk before that conversation and it didn’t take much research to realize that not only is it possible to use the milk, it is excellent for making cheese. This information reignited my desire to proceed with my plans.
I have been able to get some of the milk to experiment with and of course it was purchased with the agreement that it is “not for human consumption.” The milk is a little different to work with but that is all part of the fun and having such a small setup makes experimenting affordable.
Where do you stand right now regarding selling your cheese?
I have had the dairy inspector out to look over my equipment and we discussed my plans. I sent a copy of my plans for the make-room to the Dairy Commission to get their approval and I have the room almost complete – I just have to install the interior doors and one exterior door. After that, I will still have to work on labels, nutritional information etc., and apply for the business license and the appropriate dairy licenses and permits. Those things will have to wait until I get the make room finished. The Nevada Dairy Commission, the inspector, and all the local agencies involved have been very helpful throughout this process. I would estimate that I am still a few months away from being able to sell the cheese I make, but hopefully, I will be in business before the end of the year.
I am not in a huge hurry and have been going as fast as financially possible. My intention has been to build in stages, having everything paid for before going on to the next step. So, after the make room is complete, it will take me a few months to get my finances caught up and then I can start the licensing paperwork and inspections process.
It has been a real challenge to build a legal make room. Actually, it is the process required to legally purchase and process raw milk that has been the real challenge, and of course there is also a very large monetary expense involved.
It is hard to believe that my brother Tyler and I started this project 4 years ago. I am so grateful that I was able to work with our father 26 years ago building his cheese factory from the ground up. Even though that endeavor ended in failure, I was able to learn from that experience and gained the skills needed, giving me the confidence to try again.
I have included the plans I had to draw up and submit to the Dairy Commission and the local building department.
3/21/2018
This is Eric’s room the night before he made his first batch of cheese in it:
