Farm Poet T. S. Eliot says April is the cruelest month, but for us it means warm weather and green grass. Between the rain and the sunshine, our pastures are starting to grow again, which means Dave is setting up Read more…
On our farm in central Pennsylvania, we get to experience the full swing of seasonal changes. We watch the spring rain turn our pastures green and experience the lush growth of summer grass. We enjoy the cooler breezes of autumn Read more…
When we started making cheese, we packaged each retail wedge by coating it in wax. We burned our fingers a few times dipping the cheese, but packaging this way wasn’t too difficult. Then a few customers complained that the wax Read more…
Affinage is a French word that refers to caring for cheese as it ages. The aging process is where our cheese matures and develops its awesome flavor. We make our cheeses in an artisan European style. Cheese factories suffocate cheese Read more…
Rennet, curds, whey, cheddaring. As you may have noticed throughout this series, cheese making has its own special vocabulary. Before I can explain the next steps in cheesemaking there are two more words that I need to define. Hoops are Read more…
Did you know that in cheesemaking, cheddaring is a verb? Cheddaring is a process that cheesemakers use to further acidify the curds and draw more whey out. This process is what allows cheddar cheese to last a long time. But, Read more…
How does a family of cheese makers from central Pennsylvania end up spending a week in Kenya, East Africa? Terry and her siblings spent their childhood in Tanzania, while our grandpa Kraybill managed a hospital. For his eightieth birthday, the Read more…
“Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet eating her curds and whey.” You probably know the rhyme, but what are curds and whey? Where do they come from, and what do they have to do with making cheese? Without curds Read more…
Whenever we have a school tour we start with a question: are bacteria good or bad? Most kids say bad because they associate bacteria with washing dirt off their hands. However, anyone familiar with food preservation knows that there are Read more…
Welcome to August. The month where the return of school starts to loom in the not-so-distant future, to the rejoicing of parents and the terror of children. Or, in our case, the rejoicing of students because they will have an Read more…