Cheese Making Recipe of the Month
Butterkase
This "butter cheese" is a semi-soft, mild cow's milk cheese made in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the United States (and now, your own home!)
When you make it, you will be using both mesophilic and thermophilic cultures, added at the same time. How does this work?
While the milk is at a lower temperature, the mesophilic bacteria go to work releasing enzymes.
As the milk gets warmer, they die and the thermophilic bacteria take over. This relay action by our little bacterial friends produces the buttery texture of this very yummy cheese.
Meet a Fellow Cheese Maker
Shawn Saindon with two of his cheddars
Shawn Saindon
Living and Learning in Portland, Maine
Shawn was one of the entrants in our 35th Anniversary Essay Contest last fall. He told us then that he wanted to be a professional cheese maker.
Now, he's most of the 'whey' there. He's interning at the Winter Hill Farm in Freeport, Maine and next fall he hopes to be studying in Italy.
Meanwhile, he's also working full time, finishing up his college degree and spending his free time singing and composing music. Ah, youth!
Check out his new Facebook page- Of Song & Cheese.
Did we mention that he makes some spectacular cheese?
Kate Johnson with friends
Teaching the waxing process
She's Opening a School!
As a farmstead artisan cheese maker, cheese making instructor, dairy goat breeder, and 4-H leader, I want to thank you for the great supplies, ingredients and information available through your website.
The first cheese I ever made was a delicious Chevre using my Nubian goat’s milk with your Chevre culture and I won a Champion ribbon with it at the Boulder County Fair about four years ago!
Since then, I’ve been using and recommending your products to my students through my home-cheese making school based out of my small farm near Boulder, Colorado- Briar Gate Farm.
I’ve had such success and positive feedback from my cheese making classes that I’m now getting ready to open a brick-and-mortar home-cheese making school in the arts and entertainment district of my small town.
I’ve just launched a campaign to get the (cheese) ball rolling: Got milk? Make Cheese!
Thanks for all you do!
Kate Johnson, Longmont, Colorado
A Blanc Bleu with white and blue molds
Good News from an Old Friend
We did a blog article about Tiffany in 2012, and we were happy to receive this update:
I hope this email finds you well, and not FROZEN. It's been a LONG winter!
I have finally gotten a break and am back to cheese making. I stopped for a while. Our herd share program became so large that I rarely had time, and if I could find time, I didn't have the milk.
We also went "OFF GRID." I have to learn how to age without power. Winter isn't hard, but summer will be a challenge.
I am going to spend 2 days (next Monday and Tuesday) at Michigan State University doing cheese with them in a commercial plant. Very exciting! I may even be making a trip out East to PA to teach the new owners of a goat creamery how to make cheese. I'm GEEKED!
Meantime, we are knee deep in planning our Farm Dayz, 2014. It's exciting and scary at the same time. We have a planning committee that meets monthly. What an awesome bunch of people! It's so exciting how quickly the event is growing!
I am in the process of TRYING to get a manufacturer's license so I can make and sell my cheese. I feel after 3 years I'm FINALLY improving enough to start offering it for sale.
Tiffany Rich, Dimondale, Michigan
This Month's Product Highlight
Brown Cheese Wrap (CWB)
This isn't a wrap for brown cheese - it's a brown wrap!!! And it includes 25 labels for securing and identifying your cheese.
Two-ply wraps are little mini-caves. The outer layer seals in the moisture while the inner layer soaks up any excess moisture coming from the cheese.
This keeps the cheese in a humid environment, much like the cave where it matured. In this environment, it lasts longer and stays the way you love it - perfectly delicious.
Please send your cheese making news & photos to: moosletter@cheesemaking.com
News From Fellow Cheese Makers
Kathy's double press
2 pound wheels of cheese, ready to wax
Doubling Up in Alaska
I really enjoy your monthly newsletter and look forward to learning something new every month.
I thought I would share my learning experience this past week.I decided I really appreciate a two pound wheel of cheese (for ease of slicing into the perfect sandwich rounds, but not for the fact that when I make a two pound wheel it ties up my press.)
I work full-time and the only time I have to make cheese is on the weekend.
I had an idea that my press was large enough to handle two molds at the same time. I could make a four pound batch of cheese and put it into 2 two pound wheels.
Yesterday was my first try and it looks like it worked perfectly.
Kathy Thorstad, Fairbanks, Alaska
Kathryn Colvig
Dominoes and Camembert on the beach
On the Beach in Costa Rica
My name is Kathryn Colvig, and I am an artist and cheese maker living in a small village on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. I am teaching anyone who wants to learn how to make many different types of cheese!
I started making cheese here because there simply wasn't any yummy artisan cheese available. There is a typical queso fresco, and a palmito mozzarella, but that's it - I longed for Camembert.
I now have a wine refrigerator that works great and have designed some ripening boxes made from plastic storage boxes and bamboo mats. My waxed hard cheeses get aged in the crisper bin of the regular fridge and this seems to work fine.
It is challenging at times dealing with a constant ambient temperature of 88F. I've learned a few things about rind forming on the counter, and losing fat through the rind.
We play dominoes every evening on the beach at sunset. My Camembert, naan, roasted red pepper hummus, and olives are the perfect way to enjoy this special time together!
I formed a Facebook group called Artisan Cheese Makers so that my friends could connect, share and learn from each other. I make regular trips to the states about every three months and bring back in my suitcase all the wonderful things I need and cannot get here. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Pura Vida!
Kathryn Colvig, Costa Rica
Please send your cheese making news & photos to: moosletter@cheesemaking.com
