I got to see the Amish cheese maker today. Found this lovely little Raw milk cheese plant in Richfield Springs. Dan is a decent sort, clean and simple place, nice cheese. I like him.
Dave, Claire Tim Powers and I were on this road trip. We picked Tim up. Tim took us over the river and through the woods. We had no idea where we were by the time we got there. Got to see a lot though and there were plain and pretty roads along the way. Took Rte 20 back (needed to get Tim some Stewerts coffee and us some petrol). The trip made sense when we got back to Rte 20.
Met the other wanna-be cheese maker. Andelo. He, like Rosemary Belforti, is trying to make a cheese using Kefir cultures. Interesting. Reminded me of some of Brian Rivington's creations he made in our plant last summer. Rind is too dry, paste is yeasty, doesn't have strong goat flavor... Claire liked the older cheese. Not so much his younger one.
He has this neet goat barn and was in the process of making the milking parlor. I'll get photos developed and see about pasting on the blog at some time.
Would love a digital camera, but we need to make it through the winter. Maybe for my birthday...
I bought two wheels of the Caerfili for the market this weekend from Dan. I am short on aged cheeses and he is in need of thinning his inventory. He is learning. I think that he will become a very good cheese maker with time. He has the Margaret Morris book and is an inquiring mind. Something about him makes me think he'll do pretty good.
A couple of more cheesemakers on Rte 20 corridor and we can get a trail! Need that cheese cluster. Want the tourists!
My goats milk project is not so good. Looks like the volume is slipping with the quality. It was 1 mil. SCC again. I have to toss the wheel most likely. I don't need a "late blower" in the cooler. I'm going to put it into a seperate smaller cooler and see what happens. It will be an educational cheese for future workshops, not something I want to sell. I've already dubbed it "Stinking Goat". Some people seem to think that milk for cheese can be crap. Well, no. It actually has to be better than the stuff going into the UHT ultra-filtered bottles of fluid milk-food that supermarkets pass off as a dairy product. You want good-bugs working, not not-so-good bugs working. Neet thing if the goat boys get that.
Our herd will be drying off February/March. I need the goats milk until then. We will be milking about 6 cows until April. I'll be making a lot of cows milk cheese until then (and supporting the whole deal with cheese sales). Daunting yet somehow I like this challange. Bout time the cheese stepped up to the plate.
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