learning
Of the three of us now working at the creamery (E, the other apprentice, ended up leaving early), I am the one with the least experience, so it makes sense for C and J to do the difficult (interesting) tasks while I do the grunt work like filling tubs of chevre and washing dishes. Which I don't resent--but I am happy that I'm now starting to get to do some of the more interesting parts of cheesemaking. For this I can thank J (the journeyperson) more than C (my boss), not because C is unwilling, but she's always running around doing ten different things and so it's hard for her to take the time to give start-to-finish instruction on anything. Most of J's instruction has taken place on days when C is gone. Last time she was gone, I learned how to make chevre--which culture to add and how much, when to add the rennet, and what temperatures to heat and cool to. So I could theoretically do it myself, except that C doesn't like apprentices to use the pasteurizers because they are so easy to break and so expensive to fix. But the whole process of making chevre could be done on the stove, except we never do it that way because we're always processing so much milk (about 30 gallons a day).
Last week I learned how to make halloumi, which is an interesting cheese that you can grill or fry without making a big melty mess. The cheeses other than chevre, we make in a big 40 gallon steam kettle, which I am allowed to operate. J talked me through it, but I did pretty much everything myself. Definitely the coolest part comes after you cut the curd into cubes. You have to continuously stir the curd as you raise the temperature over the course of about 40 minutes. The best way to do this is with your hands. So I was up past my elbows in this warm, silky curd, stirring and separating to prevent it from matting. The whole time, more whey is coming out the the curds, so the curds become smaller and bouncier. When they're ready, we scoop them into baskets and press them, and move the whey to one of the pasteurizers and start heating it up. The curds stick together pretty quickly, and we can soon remove them from the baskets and drop them into the hot whey. They cook in the whey for about an hour (and the air conditioner can't be running while the pasteurizer is running, so it gets really horribly hot in the kitchen), and then they come out and go into brine for a couple of days.
And today… J taught me to do cheese maintenance, which always seemed like this mysterious skill, but it turns out it's pretty simple. You go into the cooler and pull out all of the bins of Camemberts and Bries. The white mold that grows on these cheeses gets fluffy and gets patted down and the wheels are flipped. Any cheeses at least 3 weeks old are considered possible candidates for selling, if they have nice mold coverage and are getting a little soft. Then come the tommes, which are wiped down with a cheesecloth outside of the barn (because breathing the mold can be unpleasant). You wipe down the oldest cheeses first, in order to pass along those good molds to the younger cheeses. If they're at least 60 days old, we can sell them, but we usually wait at least 90.
Last week I learned how to make halloumi, which is an interesting cheese that you can grill or fry without making a big melty mess. The cheeses other than chevre, we make in a big 40 gallon steam kettle, which I am allowed to operate. J talked me through it, but I did pretty much everything myself. Definitely the coolest part comes after you cut the curd into cubes. You have to continuously stir the curd as you raise the temperature over the course of about 40 minutes. The best way to do this is with your hands. So I was up past my elbows in this warm, silky curd, stirring and separating to prevent it from matting. The whole time, more whey is coming out the the curds, so the curds become smaller and bouncier. When they're ready, we scoop them into baskets and press them, and move the whey to one of the pasteurizers and start heating it up. The curds stick together pretty quickly, and we can soon remove them from the baskets and drop them into the hot whey. They cook in the whey for about an hour (and the air conditioner can't be running while the pasteurizer is running, so it gets really horribly hot in the kitchen), and then they come out and go into brine for a couple of days.
And today… J taught me to do cheese maintenance, which always seemed like this mysterious skill, but it turns out it's pretty simple. You go into the cooler and pull out all of the bins of Camemberts and Bries. The white mold that grows on these cheeses gets fluffy and gets patted down and the wheels are flipped. Any cheeses at least 3 weeks old are considered possible candidates for selling, if they have nice mold coverage and are getting a little soft. Then come the tommes, which are wiped down with a cheesecloth outside of the barn (because breathing the mold can be unpleasant). You wipe down the oldest cheeses first, in order to pass along those good molds to the younger cheeses. If they're at least 60 days old, we can sell them, but we usually wait at least 90.
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