Making Cheese in God's Country
(Page 2 of 4)
April/May 2001
By Anne Vassal
The Mt. Sterling Cheese Co-op is the world's largest goat milk co-op, incorporating 37 goat farms in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. The unpasteurized goat milk for the cheddar cheese is aged 60 days according to government standards. This is the minimum length of time that raw milk cheeses must be aged to ensure that all potentially harmful bacteria have died. The U.S., however, is the only country that imposes this standard, and many cheesemakers are concerned that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) may ban the use of unpasteurized (raw) milk in cheese production. According to Mt. Sterling's manager Kent Salmon, "pasteurization kills the enzymes that make raw milk cheese better." He adds that homogenization - the process through which milkfat solids are evenly distributed throughout the milk (and the reason we no longer have cream at the top) - is also unnecessary because goat's milk has smaller fat globules than cow's milk, so the milk is homogenized "right from the goat."
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Moving right along, I stopped at Cedar Grove Cheese in Plain. Bob Wills began making specialty cheeses at the Cedar Grove cheese factory when he purchased the family business from his father-in-law in 1989. The factory now produces 40 varieties of cheese, including some unusual blends such as sun-dried tomato-basil cheddar and garlic-dill cheddar.
Cedar Grove Cheese was one of the first companies to label its cheese "rBGH-free" on the front of the package, but that didn't last long. Under pressure from lobbyists, the USDA declared that rBGH-free labeling must also state that there's no significant difference between rBGH and rBGH-free products, which defeats the purpose of labeling. With or without a label, Cedar Grove, along with some organic dairies, such as the Organic Valley cooperative of family f arms, continues to use rBGH-free milk. In addition, about 40 percent of their cheese products are organic.
An impressive example of Cedar Grove's progressiveness is their innovative solution to wastewater disposal, a significant environmental problem for most cheese factories. By building a green house behind the factory, Wills was able to create a low-tech "living machine" treat ment plant that simulates the organic cleansing process that naturally occurs in wetlands. The water purification system, designed by Living Technologies, Inc. in Vermont, has never been used before at a cheese factory, but appears to be working out quite well at Cedar Grove.
