cheeseunderground Andy Hatch, bleu mont dairy, cheese, fda, raw milk cheese, uplands cheese, willi lehner, Wisconsin cheese

The Beginning of the End of Raw Milk Cheese in Wisconsin?

Wheels of Bleu Mont Bandaged Cheddar, once made
exclusively from raw milk, are now pasteurized
because Cheesemaker Willi Lehner can’t find a cheese
plant that will today allow raw milk through its doors.

I have been exceptionally lucky to have been in the right place at the right time most of my life. But no luckier than in 2003, when I took a job at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture and got drafted into a small team that would go on to help artisan cheesemakers launch a dairy renaissance in America’s Dairyland.

Since then, I’ve been privileged to watch dozens and dozens of artisan cheesemakers start-up and craft what have become national and international award-winning cheeses, and many of those cheeses have been made from raw milk.

That’s why it’s particularly painful for me to put the last part of that sentence in past tense: “have been made from raw milk.” Because whether the American consumer is aware of it or not, many Wisconsin-made artisan cheeses that were only a year ago made from raw milk, are now pasteurized.

Last week, I got lucky again – this time I was in the right place at the right time to escort a leading French scientist to visit Wisconsin cheesemakers making raw milk cheeses. Christine de Sainte Marie is a senior research fellow at the French Institute National Institute for Agricultural Research. Her current research is on the political economics of reconnecting farming, food and the environment. Instead of slow food or fast food, she is studying people who are “farming in the middle” e.g. farmers using sustainable farming methods or cheesemakers making artisan cheese, but who are not certified organic. And she came to Wisconsin to study raw milk cheese.

So you can imagine my surprise when we arrived at Bleu Mont Dairy for our pre-arranged tour with one of Wisconsin’s original raw milk cheesemakers, Willi Lehner – once described by the New York Times as an “off the grid rock star” – only to find out he hasn’t made a raw milk cheese in months. Why? With no creamery of his own, he relies on renting space at other Wisconsin cheese factories to make his award-winning creations. And now, because of increased scrutiny and inspection protocols from federal inspectors, none of those factories will allow raw milk cheese out their doors.

“I feel there is an underlying fear in the whole cheese industry, that drains away the passion of our craft. And one of the results will be less and less real raw-milk cheese,” Willi said.

Brenda Jensen, cheesemaker and owner at Hidden Springs Creamery near Westby, agrees. Brenda makes more than a half dozen different cheeses, all made from pasteurized milk. She makes one cheese from raw milk: Ocooch Mountain, an alpine-style beauty that many have compared to a sheep milk’s salute to Gruyere.

Last week, this 50-time ACS award winner for farmstead sheep milk cheeses had a FDA inspector come to her door and ask for 20 wheels of ONLY her raw milk cheeses for testing. The inspector wanted the chain of ingredients, where they came from, all lots associated from them and a make sheet with all info. None of those requests are out of line, so Brenda spent several hours reviewing what was needed. But she kept thinking: “Why just the raw milk cheese?”

“Instead of the intimidation, I would rather have the inspectors help train me on what issues they are seeing with raw milk cheeses, and how better to safeguard against having these become a problem,” Brenda said. She is now considering stopping raw milk cheese production.

Bruce Workman, at Edelweiss Creamery in Monticello, decided last year that making raw milk cheese was no longer worth the risk or the headache of increased FDA scrutiny. His Edelweiss Emmentaler, traditionally made with raw milk, is now pasteurized.

Meanwhile, some cheesemakers, such as Andy Hatch at Uplands Cheese, remain committed to making raw milk cheese. With no pasteurizer in the plant, Andy crafts the thrice-awarded ACS Best in Show Pleasant Ridge Reserve on a seasonal schedule, making cheese only when cows are grazing on fresh pasture.

On our visit to his farm last week, Andy told Christine he plans on making his raw-milk Rush Creek Reserve this year (last year, he suspended production, because of uncertainty in forthcoming FDA regulations). But he admits, his passion for making cheese is now coated by anxiety.

“What’s different now is that the decision-making behind creating a new cheese is laced with an apprehension over unclear and changing regulations,” Andy said. “Whereas before my first instinct was always towards developing something unique and expressive, now I instinctively worry first about making an acceptable product, and then second about making it delicious.”

Despite uncertainty over FDA’s potential changes with regulating raw milk cheeses, Andy hopes cheesemakers will stay the course. In an update to ACS members today, it was noted that the FDA is embracing an approach in regulating raw milk cheese that will “involve continuing outreach to stakeholders and expanding the conversation” – especially about the aging process for soft-ripened cheeses – before making any decisions on next steps in changing the 60-day rule for raw milk cheese in the United States.

“We, as cheesemakers can’t allow those concerns to trump our efforts to make expressive, distinctive cheese. If we’re given a chance to prove with testing that our cheeses are safe, than those goals need not be mutually exclusive,” Andy said.

cheeseunderground 20-year cheddar, aged cheddar, cheddar, justin aprahamian, justin carlisle, L'Etoile, tony hook, tory miller, Wisconsin cheese

Hooks Donate $40,000 from 20-Year Cheddar

During the next few days, you’re going to hear a lot about Hook’s 20-year Cheddar.

You’re going to hear about how it debuted at a fancy dinner at L’Etoile in downtown Madison, where three James Beard award-winning chefs prepared a seven-course dinner for 70 people.

You’re going to hear about how expensive it is – $209 a pound – and how there’s very little to be had, because most of it is pre-sold or already reserved.

You’re going to hear about how surprisingly creamy it is for a 20-year piece of Cheddar, and how the calcium lactate crystals crunch in your mouth like pop rocks. And guess what? All of these things are true.

What you’re likely to hear less about, is that tonight, Tony and Julie Hook donated $40,000 – half of all proceeds from their 20-year cheddar — to the new Babcock Hall/Center for Dairy Research Building Fund at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“I said when we started this, that if I got a cheddar to make it to 20 years, I’d donate half the money to the Center for Dairy Research,” Tony said. “Well, I meant it. We’re proud of the work they’re doing and looking forward to a new facility.”

Ground is expected to be broken this summer on the new Babcock Hall, which will be a state-of-the-art facility at UW-Madison with 20,000 square feet dedicated to a new Center for Dairy Research and dairy processing space with specialty ripening rooms to manufacture and experiment with mold and surface ripened cheeses. The building is expected to be finished in 2018.

Many, many thanks to the Hook’s team for making such an amazing cheese and for their generosity to the the industry. And a big thank you to chefs Tory Miller, Justin Aprahamian and Justin Carlisle for a fabulous dinner with seven courses featuring Hook’s Cheddar from young to old.

First off, all three chefs each created a cheese curd dish: top right with Kimchi by Miller, bottom with pesto and pickled rhubarb by Aprahamian, and left with truffles, Buddha’s hand and koshu from Carlisle.

Next, Miller created a 2-year Hook’s Cheddar “nacho” with chorizo, picled jalapeno and cilantro.

The first official course (the previous were bonus starter courses) was charred asparagus, rhubarb-hickory nut salumera and shaved 5-year Hook’s Cheddar from Miller.

Second course was one of my top 10 favorite dishes ever: Hook’s 10-Year Cheddar soup, with pepper, beer vinegar, popcorn wafers and chives by Carlisle.

Third course: 15-year Hook’s Cheddar with roasted veal breast, apricot and turnip by Aprahamian. One of our table mates had to stop mid-chew because he was “having a moment” and never wanted this dish to end.

Cheese course: Hook’s 20-year Cheddar. The dining room applauded after the first taste (and Wisconsin Foodie recorded our reactions).

Dessert: curd cheesecake with rhubarb, meringue, basil and delicious mystery pink ice by Carlisle.

Many, many thanks to all three chefs, L’Etoile, the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board and the Hook’s Cheese team for making tonight’s dinner happen. Wisconsin salutes you!

cheeseunderground dairy farm, john pagel, ponderosa dairy, ponderosa farm, Wisconsin cheese

Pagel’s Ponderosa Dairy: More Cows, More Milk, New Cheese

Wisconsin media reported last week that while the number of Wisconsin dairy cow farms dropped below 10,000 for the first time in generations, both cow’s milk production and specialty cheese numbers in America’s Dairyland are up. How can that be?

With the high cost of land and feed, farms today must get bigger to stay profitable and compete on a national level. It is no longer viable for the average farmer to milk 10 cows and still make enough money to take a vacation or send kids to college. That’s why we’re seeing more family farms combine herds, add cows and grow larger.

Here’s a breakdown of farm and cow numbers in Wisconsin, according to the last agricultural census: about 1,300 farms milk 19 cows or less; 3,200 milk 20-49 cows; about 4,200 operations milk 40-99 cows; 1,580 farms milk 100-199 cows; 815 farms milk 200-499 cows; 256 operations milk 500-999 cows; 106 farms milk 1,000 to 2,499 cows; and 25 dairies milk more than 2,500 cows.

Despite the overall lower number of farms, Wisconsin dairies are producing more milk. In fact, the state’s 1.27 million cows produced a record 27.7 billion pounds of milk last year, a record high.

Speaking of records, the Wisconsin Agricultural Statistics Service released the latest Specialty Cheese numbers this week. In 2014, Wisconsin maintained its ranking as the nation’s no. 1 cheese producing state, with specialty cheese accounting for 23 percent of all cheese production,  up from 15 percent in 2006.

Of the state’s 127 cheese plants, 91 craft at least one type of specialty cheese. Feta accounts for the largest share of specialty cheese production, with Blue, Havarti, Hispanic types, specialty Mozzarella, Parmesan and specialty Provolone all remaining popular. Italian Fontina production rose a record 27 percent over the previous year, while Romano wheel production was 20 percent higher.

And while the number of cheese plants in Wisconsin continues to increase, one Wisconsin dairy family announced this week it plans to expand that number even further. John Pagel, owner of Pagel’s Ponderosa Dairy in Kewaunee, announced construction is underway for a 2,500-square-foot cheese plant on the family farm.

The Pagels milk 5,000 cows and have been experimenting with cheesemaking since last summer, having a nearby cheese plant craft cheese with their milk. During a Wisconsin Specialty Cheese Institute meeting in September on the Pagel farm, attendees were treated to a prototype Ponderosa Dairy cheese of garlic and herb cheddar. John says he’s been working with the Center for Dairy Research in Madison to develop a unique farmstead cheese that will carry the Pagel’s Ponderosa Dairy Farm label, and on May 1, hired Master Cheesemaker Steve Hurd as farm cheese plant manager.

The Pagels already see between 10,000 to 12,000 visitors on their farm every year, John says, so building an on-farm cheese plant is the natural next step. “I’ve got four kids working on the farm now, and 10 grandkids eager to get into the business.”

Expanding his farm over time has been key to the Pagels’ success. John took over the family farm from his father in 1980, milking 150 cows. In 1995, the farm expanded to 450 cows, and in 2000, the farm built a double-20 parlor, expanding to 1,500 cows. In 2008, the Pagels built an on-farm methane digester that creates enough energy to power 1,200 homes, and in 2009, installed a 72-cow rotary milking parlor that milks 525 cows an hour. The herd is primarily Jersey-cross breed and Holsteins.

The 72-cow rotary milking parlor at Pagel’s Ponderosa Dairy.

Last year, John purchased Ron’s Cheese in Luxemburg, Wisconsin, and signed a lease to launch the Cannery Public Market in downtown Green Bay, a proposed local foods center. He plans to use Ron’s Cheese as both a retail outlet and wholesale distributor, and to sell the farm’s cheese at the new Green Bay facility, next door to Titletown Brewery. Prototypes of Ponderosa Cheese made and aged at a nearby cheese plant is now for sale online.

“We’re hoping to create an atmosphere that consumers will enjoy and supply it with our own beef, cheese and dairy products,” John says. He’s working to create a one-stop destination at the farm where visitors can see cows milked, energy created and cheese manufactured. “People will be able to watch a number of technologies happen all in the same location.”

Congratulations to the Pagel family! We look forward to eating more of your cheese very soon.

cheeseunderground cheese, Colby, deer creek, The artisan cheese exchange, The Robin, Wisconsin cheese

Colby Makes A Comeback with The Robin

In 2009, Jon Topp of Chesterfield, Missouri, sent me an email and attached a spreadsheet listing dozens of Colby cheeses he had ordered from Midwestern cheesemakers during the past several years, in 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 remembered eating Colby in longhorns, wrapped in cloth and wax.

He said he could 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 was NOT mild cheddar. It was dry, not rubbery, gooey or wet and had the perfect salt to moisture ratio.

In short, it was perfect. And Jon Topp could no longer find it. Since then, I, too have been on a quest to find true, original Colbys (and found them at Hook’s Cheese and Widmer’s Cheese Cellars). This week, fellow cheese peeps, I found another one.

Introducing Deer Creek The Robin, named for Wisconsin’s state bird, this Colby is a partnership between Henning’s Cheese in Kiel and Chris Gentine of The Artisan Cheese Exchange in Sheboygan. Turns out Chris, too, has been on a quest to find true Colby, so he worked with the Colby masters at Henning’s to create a young cheese with a firm, open and curdy body. It is not made in longhorns (good luck finding many cheesemakers who want to hand-punch curd into a longhorn form anymore), but it is made in12-pound tall wheels, bandaged with linen and dipped in wax.

The result could very well be the end of Jon Topp’s journey: a true Colby of years gone by, with a fresh, dairy flavor, buttery, yet curdy texture with nutty notes and nice salty finish.

If you’re wondering why this is such a big deal (I know what you’re thinking – I can buy Colby in any supermarket store in America), let me give you a brief background on this iconic cheese. Colby was 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 during the make process, the curd 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.

Back in 2010, after Jon Tropp initially emailed me, I contacted cheese industry guru John Jaeggi at the Center for Dairy Research in Madison, and he told me this traditional make method allowed Colby a curdy texture with mechanical openings. The flavor was slightly sweet with a slight salty note. Best of all, John said, the cheese had a dairy, milky note.

All this was grand until 1998, when the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture changed the state standard of identity for Colby cheese — here is a link to the original document with the original wording – you’ll have to scroll down to 81.50(2) and note the the hand-written notation with the change in statute — and amended 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, led to significant changes in the make process of Colby by Wisconsin manufacturers. Because mechanical openings were no longer required of Colby, many processors today simply (and I’m going to get in trouble for saying this, but it is the truth) make a cheese that resembles mild cheddar but label it as Colby.

But it’s not just the change in state statutes that doomed Colby in Wisconsin. Jaeggi notes 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.

Lastly, the hoop sizes and pressing of the cheeses is much different today than it was back in the day. 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.

Which gets me back to Deer Creek The Robin. This Colby is a true anomaly – it is crafted in a 12-pound wheel, but has the taste, flavor and texture of longhorn Colby cheeses of years gone by. I got a chance to taste the cheese this week when Gentine shipped me a wheel at Metcalfe’s Market-Hilldale in Madison. We cut open the wheel, and then stood in awe, as we smelled the old-time milkiness of true Colby and could literally count the openings in the curd like stars in the sky.

Deer Creek The Robin is just now making its debut in national markets, and I am excited that Metcalfe’s Market-Hilldale is one of the first stores to carry it. We have it proudly displayed on our Deer Creek shelf, sandwiched between Deer Creek The Stag and Deer Creek The Fawn, two Grade AA Cheddars Gentine has also created with the help of Henning’s Cheese.

So, Mr. Topp – wherever you may be – while you may never find the Colby you grew up with (Jaeggi says most traditional Colby was made by small cheesemakers, each factory had their own unique flavor profile, and sadly, most, if not all, of those factories are now closed) — you may want to try Deer Creek The Robin. It may very well be a close second to the the Colby of your childhood.

cheeseunderground beginning cheesemaker, eckerman, scholarship, Wisconsin cheese, wisconsin cheese originals

Your Next Future Wisconsin Cheesemaker: Christopher Eckerman

A University of Wisconsin-Madison student aiming to develop his own brand of sheep milk cheeses is the recipient of the 2015 Beginning Cheesemaker Scholarship from Wisconsin Cheese Originals.

A committee of industry leaders selected Christopher Eckerman, Antigo, for the $2,500 annual award. As you know, Wisconsin is the only state to require cheesemakers to be licensed, an 18-month process that involves attendance at five university short courses, 240 hours of apprenticeship under a licensed cheesemaker, and passing a written exam at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture.

Eckerman is a full-time student at UW-Madison majoring in Food Science. He grew up on a sheep farm of 200 milking ewes in Antigo. He is a member of the Dairy Product Evaluation Team on campus, and hopes to apprentice this summer in the Babcock Dairy Plant under Master Cheesemaker Gary Grossen. His long-term goal is to continue the family farm and craft his own brand of seasonal sheep milk cheeses.

This marks the sixth year Wisconsin Cheese Originals has offered a $2,500 scholarship to a beginning cheesemaker. Past recipients include:

•    2014: Sandra Acosta, dairy goat farmer in Port Washington, Wis. She is continuing to work toward obtaining her cheesemaker’s license.
•    2013: Jennifer Digman, licensed cheesemaker and dairy farmer in Cuba City, Wis.
•    2012: Anna Landmark, licensed cheesemaker and owner of Landmark Creamery. She won a gold medal at the 2015 U.S. Championship Cheese Contest for Petit Nuage, a fresh sheep’s milk cheese.
•    2011: Rose Boero, licensed cheesemaker and dairy goat farmer in Custer, Wis.
•    2010: Katie Furhmann, licensed cheesemaker at LaClare Farms in Pipe, Wis. At the 2011 U.S. Championship Cheese Contest, she took Best in Show for her goat’s milk cheese, Evalon, and was named U.S. Champion.

Congrats to Christopher – we can’t wait to watch you grow in this industry!

cheeseunderground cheese, dairy, gouda, hollands family farm, marieke gouda, marieke penterman, rolf penterman, Wisconsin cheese

Marieke Penterman: One Rockin’ Mama Cheesemaker

There is no doubt that U.S. Champion Cheesemaker Marieke Penterman is absolutely a good cheesemaker. She’s got the credentials, awards and aging room full of cheese to prove it. And there’s no doubt the girl can dance – anyone who’s ever witnessed her moves when winning an award can attest to her prowess on a stage. But above all, and perhaps not as well known, is the fact that Marieke Penterman is an amazing mom and wife. All it takes is a visit to her family’s new retail store, cheese plant, dairy barn and milking parlor off Highway 29 in Thorp to confirm that Marieke is indeed a master at balancing work and family.

Walking up to the brand new Holland’s Family Cheese agri-tourism facility – where visitors can see every step of cheesemaking from farm to fork – is seeing every dream of a first-generation immigrant family come true. After winning the 2013 U.S. Championship Cheese Contest, Marieke, her husband, Rolf, and their five children, aged 11 to 5, put their plans of building a visitor-friendly dairy facility in high gear.

Today, from 7 am to 7 pm, visitors start in the Holland’s Family dairy barn, where they can watch 435 cows milked three times a day. Two sets of viewing windows – downstairs and upstairs – make for great viewing perspectives of how the Pentermans’ herd of Holsteins, Red Holsteins, Brown Swiss and crossbred cows are milked in a modern parlor. School groups can visit with teachers for just $2 per child, and  gather in an upstairs educational room to hear the details of milking cows, followed by cheese tasting. Self-guided tours for the public are free, and guided tours may be booked in advance for a fee.

From the dairy barn, visitors walk just a few yards past a giant fiberglass Holstein cow to enter the retail store and cheese plant, which features large viewing windows of both the cheesemaking room and the aging rooms. A cozy fireplace with comfortable couches invites guests to get a cup of complimentary coffee, buy a wedge of cheese, and enjoy it right on site. An ice cream counter filled with Kelley’s Country Creamery is perfect for kids, and shelves of authentic Dutch foods and goodies are available for purchase. Marieke also believes in supporting her fellow Wisconsin cheesemakers, so a huge cooler filled with Wisconsin specialty and artisan cheeses round out the shopping experience.

But it’s not until one sees the parts of the facility not open to the public that one begins to learn what a a devoted mother Marieke is to her five kids: twin girls Luna & Joyce, age 11; Dean, 8; Fenne, 7; and Finn, 5. After school, the kids march up to the offices of the cheese plant to do their homework, where each has a self-decorated workstation with their initial on it, and where, three days a week, a high school student helps them with homework.

Marieke says she also helps them with schoolwork when she can, but like most parents – including me – by the time your kids are in middle school, math problems and grammar exercises are beyond us. With her office right across the hallway – marked by a bright orange door (each of the employees got to pick the colors of their doors and office walls), Marieke can both make sales calls while watching her kids out the door.

Unlike the original Penterman farmstead just a few miles away – where the farm house was across the yard from the dairy barn and cheese factory, the Pentermans purposely built their new house away from the farm – close enough to see it, but not close enough to walk there. “I liked being right on the farm before, but now, with a store open 7 am to 7 pm, we are here a lot. And I want my kids to know that when we’re home, it means we’re home. That’s for the family.”

The Penterman kids also remember where they came from. Marieke and Rolf speak both Dutch and English to their children (on a visit this weekend, each child was asked in Dutch to introduce themselves, and each did so with incredible cuteness), and Marieke proudly displays pictures of both her and Rolf’s family on the upstairs walls above the retail area. This area is available to the public to rent out for parties – “Our first party was a bachelorette party, and we didn’t even have it done yet,” says Marieke. Especially poignant photos include this one of Marieke’s grandmother and father, who as a small boy, is watching his mother milk the family cow:

And then there’s this one, taken many years later, which show Marieke as a little girl, holding the lead rope of one of her father’s Holsteins.

It’s hard to believe that not yet 10 years ago, Marieke started her cheesemaking journey with just one helper in the cheese room. Today, the Holland’s Family crew is made up of 20 women and 4 men, a strong and growing team, including Natalie, the sister of one of the original cheesemakers Marieke hired when she first started. That’s Natalie pictured at left below, with Marieke in the middle.

When she’s not in the cheese room or her office, or attempting to help the kids with homework, Marieke still finds time to be in the barn. She knows many of the cows by name, and even talked a local veterinarian into setting the broken leg of a recently-born calf. The vet, of course, wrote “Gouda Luck”, and all the kids signed it.

But it turns out Marieke isn’t the only devoted parent with a sense of fun – on a visit to Holland’s Family Cheese this weekend, we watched as Marieke’s husband, Rolf put air in the giant “Kangaroo Pad” right outside the front door of the retail store. The pad is open to all visitors – no matter their age – to jump on and have a little fun.

On this day, the first kids to break it in for the season were the Penterman brood. Twins Luna and Joyce jumped with abandon, while Dean chased his sisters, Fenne took frequent breaks to eat Laffy Taffy gathered at that morning’s Thorp Easter Egg Hunt, and little Finn tried valiantly not to slide off the edge when his brothers and sisters jumped near him.

And to top it all off – Rolf joined in on the fun, jumping from end to end right along with the kids, stepping off at the end, out of breath, to give Marieke a hug and to encourage her to give it a try. She smiled and joked she was happy to watch him and the kids. Because as a champion cheesemaker, mother and wife, she needed to hurry back inside the store to wait on a customer who was eagerly waiting to buy a wedge of cheese with her name on it.

cheeseunderground cheese, willy st. coop, Wisconsin cheese

2015 Willy Street Co-op Cheese Challenge: Cast Your Vote!

Never mind that the U.S. Cheese Championships are happening today in Milwaukee, or that UW-Madison’s own Big 10 basketball player of the year Frank Kaminsky is on the cover of Sports Illustrated, or that spring has sprung in Wisconsin, the real news today revolves around the “Cheese Taste Testing Challenge” dreamt up by the geniuses at Willy Street Co-op in Madison.
Behold the ultimate Wisconsin specialty cheese bracket:
Inspired by the NCAA basketball tournament, the 2015 Co-op Cheese Challenge sets 32 Wisconsin cheeses against one another to determine the state’s big cheese. In even more exciting news, several cheeses will be sampled at both Co-op locations from 9 am to 1 pm on:
  • Today, March 19 through Sunday March 22 – Round 1
  • Thursday, March 26 and Friday, March 27 – Squeaky 16
  • Saturday, March 28 and Sunday, March 29 – Edible 8
  • Thursday, April 2 and Friday, April 3  – Fromage Final 4
  • Saturday April 4 and Sunday, April 5 – Cheese Championship
Throughout the Cheese Challenge we cheese geeks can vote via Facebook on which cheeses we like best to see who advances to the next round. You can also vote in-store at both Willy St. locations.
May the best cheese win!
cheeseunderground cheese, cheesetopia, Wisconsin cheese, wisconsin cheese originals

CheeseTopia Debuts in Milwaukee April 12 – Tickets on Sale Soon!

Exciting news, cheese peeps. Today I announced that CheeseTopia, a new one-day traveling festival that aims to bring the best of the Midwest’s farmstead and artisan cheeses to the heart of the city, officially debuts in Milwaukee on April 12.

Tickets are $25 and go on sale to the public on Feb. 24 at 10 a.m. Members of Wisconsin Cheese Originals may purchase tickets one week earlier. All tickets will be sold in advance.

The event will take place inside the Pritzlaff Building, a renovated warehouse in the Historic Third Ward of Milwaukee. More than 20,000 square feet of floor space will be filled with cheesemaker and artisan food tables surrounded by carved wooden beams, industrial age columns, Victorian era arched windows and gritty cream city brick. Year two of the festival will be in Chicago, while year three is set to take place in Minneapolis.

The goal of CheeseTopia is to bring the best of Midwest artisan and farmstead cheese to the heart of major cities by offering attendees the opportunity to sample and purchase cheese from 40 cheesemakers and local artisans from the Great Lakes Region, including Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa. The festival will be open from Noon to 4 p.m.  and offer a fun open marketplace atmosphere with cheese samples and a cash bar.

Here’s a list of participating cheesemakers, with more likely to be added in the next week or two:

  • Alemar Cheese Company, Mankato, MN
  • Burnett Dairy Cooperative, Grantsburg, WI
  • Capri Cheese, Blue River, WI
  • Caprine Supreme, Black River, WI
  • Carr Valley Cheese, LaValle, WI
  • Clock Shadow Creamery, Milwaukee, WI
  • Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese, Waterloo, WI
  • Crème de la Coulee Artisan Cheese, Madison, WI
  • Emmi Roth USA, Monroe, WI
  • Harmony Specialty Dairy Foods, Stratford, WI
  • Hidden Springs Creamery, Westby, WI
  • Holland’s Family Cheese, Thorp, WI
  • Klondike Cheese, Monroe, WI
  • Koepke Family Farms, Oconomowoc, WI
  • LaClare Farms Specialties, Malone, WI
  • Landmark Creamery, Albany, WI
  • Ludwig Farmstead Creamery, Fifthian, IL
  • Maple Leaf Cheese, Monroe, WI
  • Marcoot Jersery Creamery, Greenville, IL
  • Martha’s Pimento Cheese, Milwaukee, WI
  • Montchevre-Betin Inc, Belmont, WI
  • PastureLand, Belleville, WI
  • Prairie Fruits Farm, Champaign, IL
  • Roelli Cheese, Shullsburg, WI
  • Sartori Company, Plymouth, WI
  • Saxon Creamery, Cleveland, WI
  • Springside Cheese Corp, Oconto Falls, WI
  • Tea-Rose Toggenburgs, Custer, WI
  • The Artisan Cheese Exchange, Sheboygan, WI
  • Treat Bakehouse, Milwaukee, WI
  • Uplands Cheese, Dodgeville, WI

While many of these artisans will sell their products, farmer’s market style, those who don’t have the opportunity to make cheese available for purchase from Larry’s Market. Owners Steve Ehlers and Patty Peterson will set up tables of cheeses for sale at CheeseTopia, bringing a slice of their Brown Deer market to the heart of the city. Thank you, Larry’s Market!

In addition, breakout seminars will take place in separate meeting spaces inside the Pritzlaff Building, which was constructed in 1875 and just recently renovated. Seminar topics will be announced next week. Stay tuned!

cheeseunderground cheese, cheesemonger, Wisconsin cheese

I Have Yet to Find a Problem that Can’t be Solved with Cheese

After nearly two years of working full-time at a retail cheese counter, I have come to realize a cheesemonger’s job is often less about the cheese than it is the customer.

Whether customers know it or not, the holiday season for cheesemongers is brutal. We work long days, long hours, with no days off, to cut and sell cheese as fast as humanly possible. We have special chat groups on Facebook that act as therapy sessions. We tolerate an endless stream of “Do you know anything about cheese or do you just work here?” from well-meaning customers. But at the end of the day, and especially during this time of rush, rush, rush, I remember the customers who remind me why I fell in love with this job in the first place.

There are the jokesters: the old men who ask “What’s Gouda today?” Every. Single. Day.

There are the hipsters, who pretend to know the difference between Blue and Gorgonzola: “Are you sure this is crumbled Gorgonzola? It looks more like crumbled Blue.” Yawn.

There are the little old ladies who troll the department from one sample station to another, piling up cubes of Gruyere on their toothpicks and sliding them into their purses, saving them for later.

And then there are the customers that one gets to know, the ones you might be friends with if you weren’t wearing a hairnet and black bowl hat that no matter how you try and style it, still makes you look like a dork. Customers like Steve, who first walked in the door over a year ago with an exceptionally well-organized notebook of cheeses he’d sampled during the course of the past year, and whom today rivals any cheese expert in the nation.

Or Dad Rap Fan, who comes in with his grandson, Ben, every Monday, gives us an update on his rap star son, chats cheese for a few minutes, and says “See you next week” with a smile and a wave. Or Jean, who every single Thursday comes in for her Woolwich Goat Brie, and when none has come in that week, tells me we should go sing to the goats to help them make more milk.

These are the customers cheesemongers live for.

And then there are the customers we meet only once, who without knowing it, change our lives. Like the woman on Christmas Eve who asked me for help in finding a cheese, because although she had always really liked cheese, she seemed to have a hard time finding one that agreed with her these days.

So I walked her around our Wisconsin section, pointing out this and that, walking back to the counter to give her a taste now and then, when she shared the reason for her sudden cheese dilemma: she was undergoing chemotherapy for late-stage cancer and had lost her sense of taste. I got choked up. Then she got choked up. So we stood shoulder to shoulder, staring at the array of cheeses, until I asked her what was her all time favorite cheese.

She said, “Blue, but my doctor tells me I can’t eat it anymore, because my immune system has become compromised.” And I’m thinking, this sweet lady has late-stage cancer, and her doctor won’t let her eat blue cheese? Really? Come on.

So I showed her the Roelli Dunbarton Blue. I told her it was a cheddar with just a veining of blue, so she really wouldn’t be breaking her doctor’s rules. She smiled, took the cheese, read my name tag, and told me she would pray for me.

Pray for me. Me.

A lady with late-stage cancer undergoing chemotherapy is praying for me. All because I helped her find the right cheese.

Thus, a sign a very dear friend gave me for Christmas this year, rings true: “I have yet to find a problem that can’t be solved with cheese.”

Happy New Year, Cheese Underground fans. May the cheese of your dreams find you in 2015.

cheeseunderground cheese crystals, Wisconsin cheese

Exploring Cheese Crystals

Marieke Extra Aged Gouda, featuring tyrosine crystals. Photo courtesy of
Yahoo Food, which identified it as one of the “Best Cheeses to Buy Now”
in March 2013, Read the full article here.

It’s interesting that more and more consumers these days are identifying cheese crystals as a feature, not a flaw.

In fact, most every day, at least one customer asks me for a cheese with “those crunchy things” – usually referring to an aged Italian style, such as Sartori SarVecchio or Extra Aged Asiago. Many consumers have figured out that those crunchy bits – known as tyrosene crystals – are often a sign of a bold-flavored cheese and extra aged cheese.

So that’s why a headline in the recent issue of Dairy Foods was so very depressing. Titled: “How to avoid crystals in cheese“, it was an essay by John Lucey, director of the Center for Dairy Research in Madison. Thankfully, upon closer inspection, the article was mostly about avoiding crystals in processed cheese (eew!) and reducing the level of calcium lactate crystals due to poor packaging techniques in plastic-wrapped cheddar. Thank goodness. As this is an industry-based publication, Dr. Lucey did well to help commodity and processed cheese makers take steps to avoid unwanted flaws.

However, for artisan and specialty cheesemakers, crystals – both tyrosene (protein crystals that form in aged Italian styles and some extra-aged Goudas), and calcium lactate (white bumps that appear on extra-aged cheddars), are becoming known more as a feature. And in good news, one of my favorite chief cheese geeks, Dr. Mark Johnson, senior scientist at the CDR, wrote an exceptional and detailed article on “Crystallization in Cheese” in the latest issue of the organization’s Dairy Pipeline — a must read — click here to view.

When I’m trying to explain the difference between calcium lactate and tyrosine crystals, I almost always go to the eternally-bookmarked page of Laura Werlin’s Cheese Essentials. On page 164, she has one of the best explanations I’ve ever read, and I quote it often. Keep in mind this was written in 2007, so Werlin was ahead of her time in appreciating this particular cheese trait:

“A by-product of cheese aging is the breakdown of protein. You have probably experienced this phenomenon but not known what it was. For you, it was when you bit into a cheese and discovered the delightful little crystals that seemed like sugar. To me, these are the ultimate payoff in a grana-style cheese. In almost all hard cheeses, the crystals are the result of the proteins breaking down, a process called proteolysis. The particular amino acid that breaks free is called tyrosine, but to anyone who enjoys those crystals, it’s called a bite of heaven.”

Werlin goes on: “You might also find crystals in cheddar cheese, but these are entirely different. The crystals found in cheddar are generally not the result of proteolysis (which explains why they are not tyrosine) and are instead probably the effects of certain starter cultures. Called calcium-lactate crystals, these tiny white crystals tend to colonize the surface of the cheese and, to the untrained eye, may look as if the cheese is developing some type of white mold. While this is not the case, many cheesemakers, particularly the large manufacturers, have traditionally tired to avoid this. However, because people usually like these crystals, many cheesemakers are no longer discouraging their development.”

At modern U.S. cheese judging contests, both types of cheese crystals are more often being treated as a feature, not a flaw. (This largely depends on the age and education of the judge – I’ve found it’s hard to convince a 70-year old Cheddar cheese grader that calcium lactate crystals are now in fashion).

The American Cheese Society is leading the way on this education. At its annual competition, judges are specifically trained on calcium lactate crystals. In pre-conference webinars, judges are taught that an “even distribution of aging crystals” on aged Cheddar surfaces may be considered desirable, and can even earn a cheesemaker points from the Aesthetic Judge if he or she determines “a pleasant mouthfeel or ‘crunch’ from these crystals if they are evenly felt and seen on the cheese surface.”

That’s good news for us cheese eaters seeking out “crunchy bits” in our cheese. The next time you’re at your favorite cheese shop, be sure to impress the cheesemonger with your knowledge of tyrosene and calcium lactate crystals!