2020 reflection
2020 was a year of experimentation for us. Once spring hit, we had all the milk, cultures, equipment, supplies, rennet and time on hand needed to make some cheese. Then the game was on! We hit some road blocks here and there. It took some time to get to know our equipment and design a work flow in the make room. Finding a routine that worked also took a bit of fine tuning. Since both cheesemaking and milking cows is critical with timing being spot on, there was a few times the schedule was off, and the 2 overlapped, resulting in a failed cheese attempt. It can be discouraging to put a lot of work into making good milk and then see it go to waste. At least we had pigs, and seeing them eat failed cheese attempts and chug gallons of milk was super pleasing.
I made notes throughout the whole year. When I learned something new, I drew a little light bulb in my journal. I was curious each time if those sparks of knowledge would change the finished batches of cheese. Would I be able to tell a difference? That’s why this is fun! This is what keeps me going. Cheesemaking is like playing a game of chess, you can never be perfect, but understanding the game allows the process to go in the direction you want.
2020 is over. 2021 milking season is still a couple months away for us. We came out of last year with a much better direction for this year. There are at least 4 cheeses we will continue in this upcoming season and we hope to fine tune them even further. They are as follows:
Big Tomme
A play off Big Tom mountain, which sits above 6,000 ft along the Black Mountain Crest, is a rocky top that we can see from our kitchen window. European Tomme-style cheeses are a simple and shorter aged Alpine cheese. We started noticing that the quality of our milk really shined through in the final flavor of our tommes. Our Big Tommes best exemplified earthy and floral changes of of our pastures. For that reason, it was a favorite among many.
Craggy Pinnacle
Another cheese named after a mountain we can see from our home, our Craggy Pinnacle cheese is a savory and nutty alpine style cheese. When the curds are still in the vat during the early stage of the cheese make, we wash the curds in hot water. This slows down the acidification of the curds and allows for a higher pH cheese when it enters the cheese cave. This allows for a sweeter and nutty finished flavor. There is an underlying complexity of the cheese that also develops with longer aging. Once again, seasonal changes in the milk are subtle and contribute to the final flavor. To top it off, we wash the final cheese wheels in a farmhouse ale/light brine mixture, contributing to it’s rind develop.
Monastic Cheese
Monastic style cheeses are usually referring to a general type of cheese. For lack of a better name, I temporarily called this our Monastic cheese. Monastic cheeses are usually semi-soft and of a stinkier variety. Our Monastic style cheese is made similar to our Craggy cheese, yet it goes into the cheese cave having a higher moisture content. This allows for a creamy and more distinct final aroma and flavor. We add b.linens bacteria to the milk, during the make, which makes the cheese have a little funk. Although, I wouldn’t say this cheese is that stinky, but the subtle funk is there and I was surprised to find this cheese started to have a following over our market season in the fall. This cheese pairs really well with hard cider, dry wine and barrel aged sours. I might play around with this a little more in 2021 and push it a little further to have just a little more funky spunk.
French Broad Breakfast Cheese
Last but not least, we did one trial run of a pasteurized bloomy rind cheese. This was a crowd pleaser and I will be sure to make batches throughout the year of this one. This is the cheese that goes really well with fresh baguettes, coffee and jam in the morning. It was the softest cheese we made this year, and the covering of geo. candidum makes a really beautiful cheese. The French Broad Breakfast adds a nice diversity to our spread. Since our farm sits directly above the French Broad River and this cheese is of a French variety, go figure the name!