Lorelei Hallock in Livingston, Montana

It’s safe to say there aren’t very many home cheese makers in Montana – the entire population of the state is a little over a million people! There are even fewer commercial cheese makers there, but we’re excited to announce that soon there will be one more. Lorelei Hallock is getting ready to open her own creamery in late spring under the name – Taste of Paradise Creamery.

Lorelei’s Story

I live south of Livingston in Paradise Valley, close to Yellowstone.

I am working on getting my creamery built on land at the Grade A dairy I work with to sell my cheese commercially. My focus is fresh cheese, but I love a good Manchego!

My cheese adventures really started with my goats, so that is how I became a dairyman…

I’m a born and bred Montanan, I grew up in the Bitterroot Valley. For years, my four older sisters and I rode horses, competing in local events and 4-H.

Being 7 years the youngest, I always struggled with being compared to my sisters, but I did my best to always be different or at least do more. At one point in 4-H, I participated in 14 different projects in the same year.

One project in particular made such an impact, it became my focus and life passion.

In the 8th grade, I wanted to find a new animal project other than horses. While I still loved riding, I wasn’t keen on the competitive intensity of the equestrian lifestyle.

One day a friend asked if I would like to help them at a show for goats. They had never done showing before and I had basic showmanship experience from horses and 4-H Round-Robins.

The goats I helped show were due to have kids again in a few months, so I got to pick out a doeling. The doe I chose was golden in color with a few snips of white on her face and feet. She reminded me of a tiny deer.

This was the doe that truly started everything for me. Her name was Sunny and with her I created my Coyote Kidz herd.

I spent my remaining years in 4-H practically obsessing and learning everything I could.

My herd grew and shrank and grew again as my school schedule allowed.

I went briefly to the University of Montana in Missoula because it was close to home, but realized that I wanted to stay in the field of agriculture so I transferred and moved to Bozeman to finish at Montana State. (Go Bobcats!)

During college I wanted to find ways to make keeping my little herd of goats more of a profitable business instead of just a hobby. I became involved with the American Dairy Goat Association and started perusing an apprentice judges license.

With ADGA I was introduced to many other dairy farmers and the world of fine artisan cheese.

I had played around with goats milk cheese but never on the level of what I sampled at the ADGA conventions. This was were I decided I needed to find a way to start building a creamery. Cheese was how I would turn my goat herd into a professional business.

I began experimenting in my kitchen with some supplies a friend purchased for me from New England Cheesemaking Supply Co.

I knew I would soon need to find a way to build a larger facility and find a place for my growing goat herd. I accepted an offer at my workplace (Murdoch’s Ranch & Home Supply) to move just over the hill south to a new store being built in Livingston, MT.

I commuted for a little while, but the pass was not easy to drive during the snowy weather that is so frequent. As luck would have it, a coworker from Livingston told me about an available house that would be ‘work for rent,’ something that would be right up my alley.

I jumped at the opportunity and found myself moving with all my goats and my significant other onto a Grade A cow dairy in Paradise Valley.

The Mitchel Family, owners of the dairy, have had their fair share of hardship with steadily decreasing milk prices and a struggling industry. The best way to stay in business for small producers is to become an independent processor, a huge financial undertaking that is nearly impossible for already struggling farmers. The opening for work and rental came up after their only employee quit with no notice.

Their need was the perfect solution for me as a beginning entrepreneur. I needed space for my goat herd and space to build, and they needed help to keep their dairy herd in operation.

Selling cow’s milk to Meadow Gold would not last forever, especially after Dean Foods declared bankruptcy recently. The Jerseys and Holsteins bred on the farm for generations would have to be sold unless the owners could somehow independently process milk. Perfect opportunity for a great partnership.

The first big step to taking my cheese making from my kitchen has been purchasing commercial supplies. I made a very good friend through my goat travels with ADGA who was changing direction with his own cheese making business and willing to give me a deal on supplies.

Just last winter, I secured a loan from the bank and was able to fly to Atalanta, Georgia to purchase my first set of equipment. With my mother as copilot, we rented a U-Haul and drove over 2,000 miles home with a 250 gallon vat pasteurizer, pneumatic press, cooler, molds, trays, brine tanks, everything but the creamery sink!

Now we (the Mitchel’s, Erick and I) are working to finish building and renovating so we can have a place to make and store the cheese and finally get a new business started.

My cheese is still small practice batches using 3-6 gallons at a time depending on the recipe. I find that the larger volume is, the more consistent the curd. I can’t wait to use the large vat for that reason.

Most of my recipes have been from the files on the cheesemaking.com website or books I purchased from there, then altered to accommodate the properties of the cow’s and goat’s milk.

My primary cheeses right now are chevre (4 main flavors – Tuscany, French onion, black truffle and sweet cream), mozzarella with both goat’s and cow’s milk, Cabra Al Vino with goat’s milk, and colby and cheddar with cow’s milk.

These are the base cheeses I hope to start out with, then, as the creamery progresses, add more types of aged and bloomy rind cheeses. I want to start simple to get a rhythm down, then ease into more complex and exciting things.

I would like to be processing close to 500 gallons of cow’s milk per week which breaks down to 2-3 batches in our 250 gallon vat. We have also acquired a 40 gallon vat for the goat’s milk to do 3-4 batches to process around 150 gallons of goat’s milk per week.

The cows we milk year round, but the goats will have a more variable season as we dry most of them off for a few months each winter.

A large portion of the fresh cheese we hope to sell wholesale to pay for operating costs. I plan to launch a new website for online sales when the creamery opens and we will be at several local farmers markets.

Further down the road I hope to open an on-farm tasting room where people can visit the animals, have a glass of beer or wine with their cheese and enjoy the view of the Yellowstone River and Absaroka Mountains.

I make practice cheeses in my spare time, and cook as often as I can with fresh ingredients from the farm.

Meanwhile, I take care of about 40 goats (Nigerian dwarf mostly and a couple of Sannes) and we have around 55 milking cows both Holstein and Jersey (we being Laura Mitchel cow herd owner, the Mitchel family (Laura’s parents, her husband and 2 children), Erick and myself – 2 families partnering to make one business).

We are starting to cut the cow herd down and will hopefully be at 25 when we open for business. We will keep more of the Jerseys as they have better milk components for cheese, but 25 cows will give me more than enough milk for the volume of cheese I can handle making.

I also judge goat shows for ADGA in the summer time, as I was able to get my judge’s license 3 years ago in 2017.

I truly love judging, it allows me to travel, something not many farmers have the luxury of doing. It gives me perspective of the industry and I get to see other herds and programs. Every show or event, I learn something new to improve myself and my own herd management.

My goal is to raise high quality animals that are healthy, efficient, and sound producers for the dairy and competitive in the show ring.

On top of all that, I still work full time at Murdochs because building a business is expensive. I am the bookkeeper by title, but I also help in the animal health department and wear many hats in the store, as my manager needs.

Thanks for letting me tell you a bit about our farm! We are in a difficult stage of renovation, but I’m very hopeful that we can have a nice variety of products and I hope people visit from all over to try our cheese!

Coyote Kidz Dairy

www.coyotekidzdairy.com

Facebook: @coyotekidzdairy

126 Pine Creek Rd
Livingston, MT 59047

Phone: 406-381-7780

Email: goatgirl.ck@gmail.com