Young's Jersey Dairy Blog

The next step is to put the freshly made curds into “hoops”, which are stainless steel or plastic forms.  The hoop is either square or round, and come in different sizes.  Each hoop first lines with cheese cloth, then the curds.  Next we place weights on top of the hoop to squeeze out more of the liquid (the whey).  Normally, the cheese is left overnight under the weights to help get the moisture level down.

In the morning, our cheese-maker takes the newly formed cheese (which is really just pressed together curds at that point) out of the hoop and places it into a plastic bag which is then vacuum sealed.  We store the cheese in a special cooler that is kept at about 50 degrees – a good temperature to age the cheese.

Some cheeses are ready to eat in about 30 days – Colby, Uncle Jack’s Jersey Jack & Pepper Jack are examples.  Other cheeses like our Baby Swiss take about 70 days to develop a good flavor and texture.  Our Red Barn Cheddar is aged between 100-180 days.  Red Barn Cheddar is a medium tasting cheddar – not a sharp or strong taste, but a nice smooth lingering flavor that goes well with a lot of different food, burgers, salads and snacking!

We will introduce our first aged cheddar – Toreador’s Aged Cheddar – at our first Young’s Farmstead Cheese Festival June 11-13, 2010.  Toreador’s Aged Cheddar will be about 270 days old then – and will be a little drier and have a stronger flavor.  We’ll have to wait until the summer of 2011 to taste our first two year old cheddar!  We plan to sell three & four year cheddar – we just have to be patient.

We named our first aged cheddar after Toreador, one of our well known bulls from the 1960’s and early 1970’s.  He was Grand Champion Jersey Bull at the Ohio State Fair in 1972!

The last step in preparing our cheese for sale is to cut it into smaller pieces.  Then we place the smaller pieces into a special plastic bag which is vacuum packed so that 99.99% of the air is removed.  That keeps the cheese in good condition until it gets to your kitchen.

Enjoy!

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!