Peter Dixon cheese class day 1

First day of three day workshop with Peter Dixon here at Monkeyflower ranch. Peter is a badass cheese consultant who operates Consider Bardwell farm in Vermont. They have turned a New England bank barn into a cheesemaking/aging facility, with a loading dock and milking parlor. Peter has been involved in multiple cheesemaking operations including Shelbourne farms which makes cheddar and Vermont butter and cheese company. He has traveld in Albania and Macedonia with a grant from land o lakes and shared some amazing stories with us including one about an albanian cheesemaker who did not use cultures, instead let the milk sit out over night and naturally ferment.

The whole drive of Peter's lectures was 1st that good cheese comes from good milk, 2nd a balance between hygiene and biodivesity is crucial, and 3rd that making cheese is the smallest part of having a farmstead cheese operation. The paramount importance of good milk means that what the animals are eating is the largest factor in final outcome. He outlined this with a feed pyramid showing the finest cheeses coming from native pastured animals, below this seeded pastures, then dry hay, followed by the less desirable fermeneted wrapped bales and finally corn and grass silage. Silage is corn or grass that has been packed without proper drying and allowed to ferment, partially digesting it and creating bacteria which compete with LAB's. Farmstead cheeses tend to be superior because the milk has not traveled very far meaning it hasn't been jostled which breaks down protein chains or left out for bad stuff to grow.

By balance between hygiene and biodiversity he means you let nature do its things with as little tampering as possible. So using wood in an aging facility is less sanitary but is prefered because a biofilm will grow on wood which will encourage growth of beneficial molds and wood will balance moisture and temp fluctuation through evaporatation cooling. Raw milk is an ecosystem of beneficial bacterias that must be preserved as it goes through the transformative processes of harvesting, handling, cheesemaking, and affinage. The doctrine of sterilty upheld by the regulatory process is often at odds with this concept of cheese as an ecosystem.

The third major point made on this first day was that the making of cheese is a minor part of a farmstead cheese operation. The difficult and time consuming sectors are farming and marketing/distribution of the cheese. The care of animals and land takes up much more time than actual cheesemaking/aging. Most farmstead cheesemakers find the business aspects the most difficult aspects. This something worth thinking about and makes me realize that studying business is a really good idea and would be more applicable to what I want to do than food science.

So on to more nuts and bolts. When discussing pastuerizing versus raw Peter came down squarely in favor of raw but explained some key differences. Pastuerizing traps more moisture giving a higher yield but making the moisture harder to remove. This is due to more calcium ion bonding under heat. HTST is actually preferable to LTST because there is less denaturing of the milk. If you go above 175 however there is damage which makes it hard 2 get a good curd formation. Peter made a very good point that it is valuable to learn the Pasturized Milk Ordinance because this is the text the inspectors use and we should get to know it.

We spent alot of time this first day going over the microbiology of milk. Peter diagramed different results of lacto-fermentations tests in which milk is put in a sterile test tube at 90-95 degrees F then allowed to sit overnight. If there is some seperation and a little bit of bubbles this is great, there are LABS. The bubbles are CO2 formed by Propionic bacterias which can form eyes in cheese and come traditionally from animals grazing on legumes. If there are numerous large holes, a sponge-like apperance and lots of whey means coliform bacteria, definetly not good. If there is fleecy curd that hangs from the sides of the tube with strands and copious whey you have psychotrophic bacteria which grow in cold milk. You can still make aged cheeses with this, just not fresh.