Young's Jersey Dairy Blog

I the last blog, we discussed the first steps in making cheese.  It all starts with good Jersey milk to make good Jersey cheese.  We talked about adding the culture and rennet to curdle the milk and to begin the process of creating each cheeses unique flavor and texture.  Below is the next steps in making great cheese.

After the curds form, the cheesemaker ‘cuts the curds’.  This is done by gently stirring the curds and whey while under strict temperature control.  The curds float on top of the whey as this stirring happens.  Different cheeses are stirred for different times and temperatures.

After the curds have been stirred, with some cheeses we then wash the curds with water to begin the process of separating the curds from the whey.  We start with warm water and slowly cool the water so the curds slowly cool down to a target temperature.  We drain the whey and capture it into a tank that we then use to fertilize our crop fields.  Whey is what is left over from the milk after the cheese (curds) are taken out.  Each gallon of milk yields about 1 pound of cheese and 7 pounds of whey (it depends on the kind of cheese being produced, but 1 pound of cheese from a gallon of milk is a good rule of thumb).  Whey makes a good fertilizer for our crops.  Using the whey in this manner helps us to make use of almost 100% of the milk our cows produce.

The next step for Colby, Jersey Jack and similar cheeses is adding salt.  We add salt to slow down the culture.  We aim to reach a specific ph level (a measure of the acidity) for each cheese.  As the cheese ages, the ph level changes.

We’ll explain the next steps in making Young’s Farmstead Cheese in the next blog.

The process of making Young’s Farmstead Cheese has several steps.  Since we started making cheese in July 2009, we’ve made about 18,000 pounds of cheese!  Our cheesemakers Mike Randall and Stuart Young have learned a lot – and learn a little more each week as each batch is finished.

Good Milk = Good Cheese

The important first step in making a quality cheese is to start with quality milk.  That may seem obvious, but it really does make a difference.  We think Jersey milk makes the best cheese – Jersey cows produce a creamy, rich milk that makes a creamy, tasty cheese.  It’s a fact that Jersey milk is higher in the solids like calcium and other minerals, and the protein – called casein – that end up being curds when making cheese.

Each cheese we make has a different recipe.  Some of the cheeses have and exact same ingredients, but are handled in different ways to produce very different tastes and textures.

One of the differences is whether we pasteurize the milk or not.  Under Federal food safety standards, when making ‘hard’ cheeses like cheddar that are aged at least 60 days, the milk does not need to be pasteurized.  The process of aging the cheese for 60 or more days kills any potentially harmful bacteria.  On our aged cheeses, like cheddar, or aged colby or swiss cheese, we are not pasteurizing our milk.

For most other cheeses, like Jersey Jack, Pepper Jack, Cheddar Curds, and regular Colby we do pasteurize because these types of cheese typically are sold within days after being produced (like Curds) or in less than 60 days (Colby & Jack cheeses).

We pasteurize our milk by heating it to 145 degrees for 30 minutes.  This is ‘slow’ pasteurization – some cheese plants heat their milk to 190 degrees or more for a few seconds.  We prefer the slow method – it tends to create a better flavor.  We heat it using a hot water jacketed vat.

After heating, we cool the milk down to 88 degrees, and then add cheese cultures.  The milk is then stirred for about an hour while maintaining the same temperature of 88 degrees.  The cheese maker then adds rennet and stops stirring.  We use an all-vegetable based rennet.  Rennet is the enzyme that starts the coagulation of the casein in the milk – it curdles the milk.

The curds created by this process form a several inch thick layer on top of the milk in about 45 minutes.  The cheese maker carefully maintains the correct temperature and monitors the curds as they form.

We’ll explain the next steps in making Young’s Farmstead Cheese in a future article.

Next time you visit, try our Fresh Cheddar Cheese Curds.  When we first started making our cheese in July 2009, almost right away we heard from our Guests who asked, “Are you making cheese curds?  Or squeakers?”  Being from Ohio (and not Wisconsin), we weren’t really sure what the fuss was about.  Now we know!  After some research, recipe development and a lot of trials, we now have 6 flavors available – Plain Cheddar, Garlic, Ranch, Horseradish/Bacon, Italian and Cajun.

What Are Fresh Cheddar Cheese Curds?

Fresh cheddar cheese curds are what we produce as one of the last steps in making Young’s Farmstead Cheddar Cheese.  When making cheddar cheese, we usually take the curds and place them in a ‘hoop’, or form (either a round or square shape) that we then put weights on overnight to squeeze together into a block or wheel.  It’s then aged for a few months.

Curds are just the fresh cheddar cheese that hasn’t been pressed into a hoop and aged.  Curds have a mild taste — they haven’t developed the stronger cheddar flavor.  Curds are delicious as a snack and can be used in many tasty ways!

How Can I Use Curds?

Just like cheese, curds have many uses.  Here are a few ideas:  Sprinkle on top of a pizza instead of mozzarella, use in stuffed pepper or tomato recipes, sprinkle on top of your favorite salad, use in your favorite panini sandwich, great in quesadillas, sprinkle on top of creamy soups, use as the cheese in mac & cheese, cheesey egg omelets, on top of chili, and the best way to enjoy fresh curds is just to eat them as they are!

We made our first batch of Young’s Farmstead Cheese on Wednesday July 8th!  It was a 140 pound batch of Jersey Jack cheese.  Jersey Jack is our version of Monterey Jack cheese, a mild cheese great for snacking and on sandwiches.

We’ve also made several batches of Colby, and Jersey Pepper Jack cheese – which is the Jersey Jack cheese with diced green, red and jalapeno peppers added.  We’ve also made some fresh cheese curds for home snacking.  The kitchen crew is working on the recipe for battered and deep-fried curds as a side choice in both restaurants.

We’re calling the fresh curds ‘squeakers’ because they squeak when you chew them.  It’s hard to describe, but you’ll see what we mean when you give them a try.  Squeakers are great for just snacking and are tasty on salads, soups or even right on a sandwich.

Both of our restaurants are already using the Jersey Pepper Jack cheese on various sandwiches.  By the end of August, all cheeseburgers will be made with Young’s Farmstead cheese.

We’ve made a few batches of cheddar cheese.  The Cheddar cheese has to age a minimum of 60 days so we plan to have it for sale by mid October!  We look forward to sampling Young’s Farmstead Cheese to our Guests!

We’ve received good feedback so far from our Guests — mostly good, but there is room for improvement.  It seems each batch of cheese we make we learn a little more about the art of handmaking cheese.  So far, Mike and Stuart have made about 2,600 pounds of cheese!  A great start to our newest enterprise.

Please let us know what you think — we aim to make the best cheese we can with 100% of the milk produced by our cows on our farm.

An update — the cheese making equipment is on the way. We have a cheese making vat and related equipment coming from a Netherlands company. We looked for a long time at domestic equipment, but at the the European equipment looks to be elegant and efficient and will help us make delicious farmstead cheese. It fits in a smaller space and looks to be energy efficient the way we plan to use it. After all, cheese makers in Europe had been at it for a few hundred years before our country even got started!

All the rest of the equipment — lab equipment, walk-in cooler, water boiler, display case, and so forth are either here or due to arrive in the next two weeks (and was sourced in the US). We plan to have the equipment all installed and ready for production by the middle of June.

The first cheese types we will make include fresh cheese curds, cheddar cheese, colby cheese, and Jersey jack cheese. The curds, colby and jack cheese will be first up for sale as they do not require much, if any, aging. The cheddar cheese will be ready by about Labor Day this year.

The Young’s Farmstead Cheese we make will be fresh milk 100% from our own Jersey cows. We do not treat our cows with rbST. Though no significant difference has been shown in the milk from treated and non-treated cows, we know our Guests expect us not to use rbST.

The Young family looks forward to this venture and can’t wait to start sampling our very own Young’s Farmstead Cheese to our Guests to get feedback and ideas.