Jon Topp of Chesterfield, Missouri, is on a quest to find the Colby of his youth. Growing up in the 1960s in central Iowa near a small country store that carried the “absolute best Colby cheese,” Jon remembers eating Colby in longhorns, wrapped in cloth and wax.
He can remember the taste like it was yesterday: mild, deliciously nutty, firm and laced with small holes. Most importantly, like much of the Colby made today, it wasn’t cheddary. It was also rubbery, not gooey or wet and had the perfect salt to moisture ratio.
In short, it was perfect. And Jon Topp can no longer find it.
Jon emailed me a couple of weeks ago, attaching the most fabulous spreadsheet listing results of dozens of Colby cheeses he has ordered from Wisconsin cheesemakers during the past several years, all in a mission to find the original Colby of his childhood. Apparently, in an act of complete desperation, he decided to email the Cheese Underground Lady to see if I could help.
I put on my cheese superhero cape, fired up the bat signal and called the person I knew who could help: the amazing John Jaeggi from the Center for Dairy Research in Madison. And in the process, I learned a lot about Colby.
Brief background: Colby cheese was actually invented in Wisconsin by Joseph F. Steinwand in 1885. He named it for the township in which his father, Ambrose Steinwand, Sr., had built northern Clark County’s first cheese factory three years before.
The Code of Federal Regulations – as specified in Sec. 133.118, describes the requirements for making Colby cheese. The key difference between cheddar and traditional Colby is that the mass is cut, stirred, and heated with continued stirring, to separate the whey and curd. Then, part of the whey is drained off, and the curd is cooled by adding water, with continued stirring, which is different from cheddar (no added water/rinse with cheddar). The Colby curd is then completely drained, salted, stirred, further drained, and pressed into forms, instead of being allowed to knit together like Cheddar.
According to John Jaeggi, this traditional make method allowed Colby a curdy texture with mechanical openings in the middle. The flavor was slightly sweet with a slight salty note. Best of all, he says, the cheese had a dairy, milky note.
All this was grand until sometime after the mid 1970s, (I can’t find an exact date) the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture decided to amend the state standard of identity for Colby cheese, ATCP 81.50(2) by adding this little gem of a sentence:
“Wisconsin certified premium grade AA colby and monterey (jack) cheese shall be reasonably firm. The cheese may have evenly distributed small mechanical openings or a closed body.”
This annotation, especially the portion I’ve highlighted in red, has led to significant changes in the make process of Colby by Wisconsin manufacturers. Because mechanical openings are no longer required of Colby, many processors are making a cheese that resembles mild cheddar and labeling it as Colby. John Jaeggi says that technology improvements have also changed Colby.
“I think cultures are faster. Older cultures were slower single strains, resulting in slower make times. These slower cultures tended to make for a sweeter cheese,” Jaeggi says. Another change is the curd wash, he says. Many large manufacturers now do a curd rinse (no hold) after dropping the curd pH down to a 5.60. Old time Colby makers used to drain whey to the curd line while the curd was still sweet – at 6.00 pH or higher. Then after the whey was drained to the curd line, water was added to drop the curd temperature to a set target. After 15 minutes, the whey/water was drained off the curd and then the curd was salted. Most of the acid developed in the press. The reason this changed was larger plants understandably did not want to process all that water along with the whey.
Also, the hoop sizes and pressing of the cheeses is much different today than it was back in the day, Jaeggi says. Traditional Colby was made in the longhorn shape and pressed in 13 pound horns. They were then waxed for sale. Other plants made Colby in 40 pound blocks.
A Wisconsin cheese company still making Colby in those 40-pound blocks is Hook’s Cheese in Mineral Point. Back in 1982, cheesemaker Julie Hook actually captured the World Championship Cheese Contest with her Colby, and husband Tony and fellow cheesemaker says they haven’t changed the recipe since then.
“We can’t keep up with demand,” Tony told me this week. “Usually, we sell Colby at 4-6 weeks because that’s when I think it’s at its peak, but lately we’ve been selling it even younger because people seem to like it so much.”
Tony says he is one of very few cheesemakers still making traditional Colby – washing the curd and not pressing it in a huge vacuum machine, which closes the small mechanical holes that used to make Colby, well, Colby. “We’re still making it the old fashioned way. We’re not cutting corners and we’re not cutting up mild cheddar and calling it Colby. Our Colby is real.”
Two other cheese plants still making Colby in the traditional manner, according to Hook (and who, coincidentally both received the highest rankings by Jon Topp in his cheese quest – Jon hasn’t yet tried Hook’s Colby), are Widmer’s Cheese Cellars in Theresa, Wis., and Gile Cheese & Carr Cheese Factory in Cuba City.
Sadly, Topp may never find the Colby he grew up with, Jaeggi says. “Most traditional Colby was made by small cheesemakers in the 50s, 60s and into the early 70s. Each factory has their own unique flavor profile. What Jon is remembering from the Colby (he grew up on in Iowa) is possibly a flavor profile from some long gone small cheese factory.”
Keep the faith, Mr. Jon Topp. And keep us posted if you find the cheese of your childhood.
I'm a big fan of Hook's cheese. I love their Blue Paradise and their aged cheddars. I haven't had their Colby, though. I'll have to check it out.
Incidently my favorite Colby is from Carr Valley Cheese, but I have no idea how authentic it is.
Is it time to wonder about Hooks and all of the others that have come out of the woodwork in the past few years touting 5,10,15 and soon to be 50 year old cheddar. Two problems. First, putting industrial cheddar in a plastic bag, vacuum sealing it (no air or air flow), placing the bag in a box, sealing the box and putting this whole container in a cooler at near freezing temperatures is not aging. The cheese would, indeed, be old, but not aged. The second point would be authenticity. Who is checking on these ages, no one. I could produce a cheese tomorrow and claim its 5 year old cheddar, who checks. If I lined up a group of these “old” cheeses not one person in 100 could tell me the difference. Even Tony says there is little difference. So I would guess the chances of anyone making cheese today with the plan of tying up a cooler for 10 years is slim. A lot, if not all of them, are scams. A black eye for the cheese industry but a typically American problem. Bigger, better, faster and now older.
Cheers
Thanks for an excellent post about Colby cheese. My dad used to buy Colby weekly from a plant down the road – we were in Stanley, WI – Clark County. I had forgotten about the holes in the cheese and the size and shape. It was delicious and not at all like cheddar. You brought back some cheese memories!
Carr valley rated 4 out of possible 10 on my rating scale. Pretty dismal. I am ordering from Hook's and Widmer (again) with the request that it be young as advised by Joe Widmer. the best has been Widmer's, but very inconsistent. Joe agreed with Tony Hook on the age it is best.
If you're looking for an excellent Colby cheese made the old fashion way by hand in an open vat, than you have to try Springside Cheese north of Green Bay, WI. You can even get long horn Colby there. They also have the best Cheddar cheese, especially try their cheese curds. Yum! Some of the best Wisconsin cheese you can buy! We’ve been going there for years when we travel north to Wisconsin.
Colby is certainly a favorite cheese of mine. I use it for many things in the kitchen. I love it for grilled cheese sandwiches!
I have long wondered about the colby cheese I ate while growing up in SE Iowa in the 60s and 70s. Your post popped up when I searched for 'the best colby cheese' in my effort to try to track it down. It may well be that Topp and I are recalling the same cheese! I haven't had a cheese like it since about 1976. At least I now have some leads on cheesemakers that have some possibility of making me very happy!
It was probably Kahoka cheese made in Kahoka, MO and now defunct.
While I love cheese I am by no means a connoisseur (just your country hack) But MY understanding of aging is that it makes the cheese sharper. I cannot eat a standard sharp cheese that is sold in stores unless I use it on cheese toast or in or on something that will be cooked as that softens the sharpness considerably. I can eat a medium but I love a mild cheddar and from time to time I stumble on some that has really good taste and texture. Then I eat it by itself. I mean that instead of putting it on a sandwich where i cant taste the cheese, I will take a bite or 2 of sandwich then a bite of cheese. And often I will eat it totally by it self as a snack. I care not how long it has been aged nor if it is hand made (just adds expense as far as I am concerned) as long as it has the flavor and texture I want. Since I think it is ridiculous to pay $5-6 / per lb for cheese, I will have to be content on stumbling on “the good stuff” when it is on sale and just happen to have the flavor and texture I love. Over the years I have tasted about 20 kinds of cheeses. All but 4 disappoint. Mild cheddar Mozzarella is a must for pizza, Pepper Jack (includes Monterrey Jack to a lesser extent) is great for sandwiches and by itself for snacking, American cheese for grill cheese sandwiches and snacking tho I can't get it on sale at a reasonable price. The first 3 are equally in 1st place with american coming in at a very distant 4th place. And that is my 2 scents worth (not a typo)
I, too, had forgotten about the holes in the sliced half-rounds our butcher would cut off the big longhorns (Colby or chedder??). They were not big round holes like in Swiss, but small and odd-shaped… more like fissures or cracks. I haven't seen holes like that in shrink-wrapped factory cheese in many years!
I'm from a northern Michigan farm and we had a store in the middle of it that use to order 200 35lb rounds of wax and mesh wrapped Colby at a time fro. Wisconsin . This was then aged for up to 36 months in a dark moist room and constantly flipped. It would become very sharp and at the max age grainy like an old gouda. It was very pungent and sour with flavor beyond any cheddar. The owner has long since died and the store burned. On my last trip home I found another small store in the middle of no where. The owner grew up in the store and has been running it for 35 years and sells 8000lbs a year of aged colby. The rounds are a smaller 22lbs but the wonderful flavor is still their. The oldest he's aged Colby is 14 years. It exist in the town of Boon Michigan
I'm eating some Weyauwega call me right now and it doesn't have any of those small holes and does taste like a mild cheddar. The government did us no favors when they dumbed down the laws typical. Always kissing up to big business. Weyauwega's gotten first class for their one year old sharp cheddar so I picked up some of that and I'm looking forward to it. I want to get some of Hooks Colby and maybe see if there is any cheese from the town of Colby that still the old fashioned kind like I remember from when I was a kid.
I remember Dad buying Colby when I was a kid. It was the only cheese he ate on a regular basis. It puzzled me at the time thinking it was bland but decades later realized I had been missing out. The biggest difference seems to be the crumbly texture that is so hard to find for reasons already discusse. My local grocer has been selling Hennings (or something similar, not positive of name) Mammoth Colby. It is the closest thing to what I remember from years ago, fun to eat.
LaGranders dairy south of Stanley WI. Been buying cheese here for years. Along with Monterey Jack in 13 pound horns. This cheese is amazing. Crumbly and curry.
I typed in, what happened to the colby cheese I had when I was a kid, and this is one of the articles that came up,,..Thanks