We've always wanted to learn how to make soft cheeses, so we signed up for
Cowgirl Creamery's tour at Point Reyes Station. After I gushed about our taste test, my friend Martha promptly commented "RIP and enjoy all the flavors!" LOL She's absolutely correct - Marin is a place for foodies who have died and gone to heaven!
When we arrived at "the barn", we found a table of small wooden ice-cream paddles and a brochure awaiting us. Cowgirl Creamery's Cheese 101 includes a presentation on the creamery's history,
MALT, a close-up demonstration of curd making, and a guided tasting.
"Today We Are Making Red Hawk"
500 to 600 gallons of organic milk from
Straus Dairy is delivered daily to creamery. The top cream is separated from the milk using this interesting-looking vacumn pump.
The milk, which at this point has less fat, is piped into a vat for pasteurizing at 120 deg F for 30 minutes
After pasteurization, milk is sent to another large vat for curdling. First, a bacteria starter culture is added to turn lactose into lactic acid. Then a coagulant is added to form curds. Cowgirl Creamery uses a lab-produced microbial rennet, but anything acidic such as thistle, artichoke, and fruit juice can be used as the coagulant
Here's the up-close demo to show how curds form and what curds may feel like (we say it's feels like "tofu")
The curds are dipped (scooped into plastic containers with holes to drain the whey) and left to sit overnight. In this case, whey is collected by an organic pig farmer because Cowgirl cannot dry whey at this location, however, whey is dried in their Petaluma location. Check out some of the
uses for dried whey!
Cheese that is destined to be firmer cheeses are flipped in the molds to remove more moisture, otherwise after whey is removed, the cheese is separated from the molds and brined. Brine helps with taste and draws out even more whey.
After brining, individual pats are rinsed and inoculated with penicillin. They sit around again and go through a drying process in the aging room. For Red Hawk cheese, a couple of extra steps are taken: Penicillin is removed and left to age for at least 2 more weeks to attract naturally occurring bacteria, b-linen.
Potential Red Hawk cheese, aging gracefully
After the hour-long presentation, we were treated to cheese samples: Creme Fraiche, Fromage Blanc, Clabbered Cottage Cheese were generously passed along. OH YUM!
Niloufer's Panir, which is made in small quantities, is fantastic! Cowgirl's soft cheeses are good for 7 days but the panir is good for 3 weeks. Too bad they were sold out :(
Time for the harder cheese. First, St. Pat
These rounds are made with whole organic milk from the Chileno Valley Jersey Dairy and are wrapped with stinging nettle leaves. Do not fear the nettles, since they are frozen to remove the sting before they are wrapped around the cheese. ST PAT, with its distinctive, green rind, commemorates the arrival of spring in Marin County. After three weeks of aging, ST PAT is mellow, soft, and full of flavor. The nettle leaves impart a smoky, artichoke flavor.
Mt. Tam
It's a smooth, creamy, elegant, 10-oz, triple-cream - made with tasty organic milk from the Straus Family Dairy. MT TAM is firm, yet buttery with a mellow, earthy flavor reminiscent of white mushrooms.
Here's the natural beauty, Red Hawk.
Red Hawk takes its name from the sanguine color of its rind, the secret to this cheese's attentive and pungent flavor. For six weeks, the rind of the cheese is "washed", meaning a salt water solution bathes the outside to bring on a naturally-occurring bacteria called B-Linen. Most cheesemakers need to inoculate cheese with this particular bacteria, but thanks to the saltwater air of the Point Reyes coastal zone, at Cowgirl the rind occurs naturally. This bacteria and the aging process give the cheese its telltale color and, more importantly, its strong aroma, earthy flavor, and rich dairy texture.
Wagon Wheel.
Wagon Wheel, the latest addition to our lineup, is Cowgirl Creamery's "everyday" cheese. The twenty-five pound wheel is made with milk from neighboring Straus Family Creamery. Ten wheels a week are produced in our new First Street Creamery in Petaluma and aged on site for two months. Wagon Wheel was designed to be on hand for everyday cooking and snacking. The 25-pound wheel has a mild, sweet milk flavor that makes it a delightful table cheese.
All were extremely good but we resisted and only came home with a wagon wheel and clabbered cottage cheese (oh, and a small slice of mimoulette)
After another round of panir (glutons that we were), we headed for the cheese counter. M chose a couple of interesting-looking cheese to sample - mimoulette and some uber-strong brie (WOW, way too strong for us but M claimed it was good... on principle, I assume :wink:)
Selection of
soft cheeses
Mimoulette- Delicious!
A large wheel of
Central Coast Goat Gouda
A semi-hard cheese made with goat milk and some added goat cream that is aged four months or more. This ivory colored cheese is firm, dense and smooth with the slight graininess of a long-aged cheese. The cheese has a caramel scent with a slightly nutty and cooked milk flavor, followed with caramel notes. The product has a hard, thin natural rind. The only domestic goat gouda that you will find.
How can one refuse? ;) After reading this interesting series
Cheese in Depth, I want to see homemade cheese in my 'fridge. Or maybe I will conveniently show up for another Cowgirl Creamery tasting, er, I mean educational tour!
Good Eats episodes:
Say Cheese! (Season 8)
For Whom the Cheese Melts (Season 2)
For Whom the Cheese Melts II (Season 5)
