Let There Be Cheese (Part 2)

We all love cheese. We’re Wisconsinites, right? But cheesemaking is most certainly an art as well as a science.

“It’s like magic,” Kara explained after yet another intensive week apprenticing at UW-River Falls last month. “You start with the same ingredient—milk—and it comes out in so many different ways with only the slightest change in temperature, time, or pH.”

Cheesemaking is not for the faint of heart (or anyone who finds accuracy annoying). And making cheese on an artisanal scale is an entirely different animal from making cheese in factory production. Kara actually got excited this week to show off her new sanitary footbath tray and graduated cylinders.

“I feel like a mad scientist now.” She grins, lining the vertical tubes up for a photo moment on a sunny table. Now that she’s a fully vested cheesemaker, all the right gear is in order. Look out Amazon.com.

Farmstead cheeses (like ours, where the cheese is made on the same farm where all the milk is produced) have the added intricacies of seasonal fluctuations in butterfat and protein ratios that are often standarized by blending different milks together before processing at larger cheese plants. So learning to finesse these seasonal variations would be important for Kara’s cheesemaking success. But there was another facet of complexity to our particular situation—we don’t milk cows.

Yes, that’s right. We’re a dairy farm, but our two cows are still heifers—and no babies means no milk. But we’ve been milking since 2012, so how does that work? Those of you who’ve taken a farm tour or learned more of our story previously have an inside scoop into our sheep dairy operation. Yes, that’s right, we milk sheep!

I know that it might sound odd in the cow-focused Dairy State, but there are actually more sheep milked worldwide than cows, and sheep’s milk has been prized for cheesemaking since ancient times. The old adage “Goat for the milk, cow for the butter, sheep for the cheese” comes from the higher density of milk solids (mostly fats) in sheep’s milk.

During Kara’s cheese trials at UW-River Falls, where she could bring her own milk in for sample batches, she found that instead of the typical 10% cheese yield from cow’s milk, she had a 15% yield. In cheese land, that’s significant.

As the apprenticeship went by, while most Millennial sisters might have sent me selfies or pics with friends at the pub, my Messenger account would ding with new pics of…you guessed it…cheese. Wrapped cheese, cut cheese, cheese forms, cheese calculations. It was all cheese all the time.

Yield of cheese from quantity of milk is not the only reason for choosing sheep for dairying, though. Sheep are lighter and gentler on the land, they also produce wool and meat, and we’re noticing that more and more folks with a lactose intolerance can enjoy sheep’s milk products without trouble—as seen over six summers of making our beloved sheep’s milk gelato.

We knew enough about the cheesemaking licensure process to know that it would take some time before certification, so gelato hit the product deck first. And who doesn’t love that icy creaminess on a hot summer’s day? But cheese? I know there’s a waiting list out there. Just hold on a little longer…we’re getting closer! Cheeses do need to age…and so have we a bit on this journey.

There were bumps and hurdles along the way. After completing the courseworks and their exams, there was still the 240 hours of apprenticeship under a licensed Wisconsin cheesemaker to accomplish before even being approved to take the licensing exam. This proved to be a particular challenge since closer-to-home producers were as equally flat-out-busy in their production cycles as we were, with no squeeze-it-in overlap time despite good intentions.

Other small artisanal dairies contacted were shy to commit because they felt we would quickly become competition to their markets or try to mimic the products they had so carefully crafted. And useful experiences she was gaining at opportunities as far away as Vermont or Colorado did not qualify because, while they were taught by licensed cheesemakers, they were not licensed Wisconsin cheesemakers.

Remember, it’s the Dairy State. So, Wisconsin only for Wisconsin cheesemaking. I get it. Back to square one. Don’t give up on the cheese yet!

Then Kara learned about training at the Dairy Pilot Plant at UW-River Falls and signed on for half of her hours this past November. But once she became comfortable in the space, she decided to put in the full 240 that semester, finishing up just before Christmas and sitting for her exam on the 26th.

For six weeks, she would drive home Friday afternoons, work like mad in our kitchen and on the farm, then head back to River Falls mid-day on Sundays. I think I did my share of hauling buckets and schlepping hay bales while she was gone. This future cheese better taste really good!

But, of course, even as we all urged her on the day she headed off for the two-hour final exam, we wouldn’t know the results for nearly a week. Oh the waiting, and waiting. And then that most excited squeal from the kitchen when the email came through.

“I passed! I passed the exam! It’s real!”

So yes, nearly five years into this project, there will be cheese. And, from having tasted a few sample batches (because, of course, someone has to have the dubious job of taste testing) I can officially say “and the cheese was good.” It’s not ready for the shelves yet, but it’s coming. See you down on the farm sometime.