Milk Trekker : August 2017

Who I am and what my mission is.

I spent ten years making cheese in the US before beginning to travel globally volunteering with cheesemakers and herders in 2019. I wish to document the intersection of traditional and modern techniques, and portray the global diversity of dairying, cheesemaking, and grazing practices. In doing this I want to show how the final cheese is the end product of a complex series of relationships and decisions made by humans, that are embedded in a a cultural, geographic, and climatic setting. I advocate for raw milk, a natural starter cultures, heritage breeds, regenerative or ecologically responsible grazing, and the right of all humans to ferment milk in their own homes, selling in local markets. In order to further my mission I am writing a book, and hope to build an online archive, a global database of cheese, dairy, and grazing knowledge. I would love to talk with anyone interested in hosting me anywhere in the world and hearing about how you do things.

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Cheese Maker at Bleating Heart

In June of 2017 I began work as a Cheese Maker and Affinuer at Bleating Heart Cheese. This company makes various cheeses in a facility located on a cow dairy in the rolling grassland of Tomales, CA near Petaluma. I got to do a lot of affinage including of blue cheeses, and learned about their unique ripening process. We had a room for hastening cheese which is a higher temperature process where yeast is allowed to come in in the first week or so of aging.

This is a wine washed cows milk square cheese done as a one off.

Death and Taxes is a pasteurized beer washed cheese utilizing a Black Lager from a local brewery.

Tasting and grading batches of Goldette, a raw Jersey milk Tomme.

Working at Bleating Heart allowed me to be apart of yet another small scale artisan cheese making business. I got to make, age, and taste cheese which is the best way to learn about. I gained experience using various types of cheese paper, doing environmental and milk testing, heat treating aging boards. Each place I have made cheese has widened my experience and knowledge of cheese making, milk, equipment, and plant design. I have also seen many ways of running cheese making businesses, doing sanitation, record keeping, and promotion/sales. It was great to experience this dairy rich part of the country, taste a lot of the amazing food of the region, and make connections in the Bay area cheese world.