I wish I had a sign to put into my kitchen that Says “doesn’t look pretty, but it tastes good!”.
Meet Jaclyn Neufeld, 37 weeks pregnant, mom of four young children, homesteader, and currently between houses. For the last few months, Jaclyn has been making cheese for her family in a winterized travel trailer, where the family of 6, going on 7, is currently living.
A few years ago, Jaclyn and Josh Neufeld, originally from Chilliwack BC, population 91,797, moved from their townhouse, to a rural property in Northern BC, 45 minutes outside of the nearest town. They had purchased a former school, with the plans of full time homesteading, and Jaclyn says they had big dreams of doing all of the things. At the end of 2020, the Neufeld’s sold their school, in hopes of finding land to build their forever homestead, for the meantime, they have winterized a travel trailer and are parked in Jaclyn’s moms yard.
Jaclyn is new to cheesemaking, and describes how her cheesemaking has really only started in the last few months.
In April of 2020, they brought Darla, a 4 year old Jersey, into their family. Owning a milk cow was a long time dream for Jaclyn. At the time, she was breastfeeding, her youngest son Aaron, and found him to be intolerant of commercial dairy. Her hopes were that Aaron, would better tolerate the Raw milk.
The first few weeks with Darla were an adjustment. Jaclyn says that the biggest recommendation she would give to people looking to buy a cow, would be the advertisement “suitable for hand milking, verses actually hand milking”, is not the same thing. She also says be prepared to feel like a new parent!
Bringing Darla into their family, brought with it a learning curve, for Josh and Jaclyn, as well as for Darla. It often took both of them to be able to milk her. With time though, she calmed down, and after she calved, “she just chilled”, and became a great mama.
These days, she is still very calm, even after the big move, they never have troubles giving her treatments, she rarely kicks the bucket, and the kids can pet her. Josh does all the milking by hand and enjoys his mornings spent with Darla. Today they are getting about 2.5 gallons of milk a day, with calf sharing, and Jaclyn describes her as a “Dream Cow”.
In the mornings Josh will bring the milk into the trailer, where Jaclyn will strain it, and on cheesemaking days, it is often strained directly into the pot. The cheese pot, a 6 gallon capacity, takes up the majority of her small trailer stove top, and she prefers to make big batches of cheese that fill her pot to the brim. How does she know it’s a cheesemaking day? Well it is as simple as there is no more room in the fridge!
A morning of cheesemaking will have Jaclyn back and forth between the cheese pot and homeschooling her children at the kitchen table ( not a far reach in a small travel trailer). Being new to cheesemaking, she says that she tries to follow the recipes to a T. Mornings of cheesemaking often are interrupted by lunch, and she says that “sometimes it ends up sitting longer than it probably should, but that’s just the way we do it”.
Depending on timing, her cheeses press in the afternoon and are put into the salt brine bucket overnight. Out of the bucket, they are dried, and vacuum sealed for aging.
Making cheese in a travel trailer means not a lot of space. She still uses her big 6 gallon pot, which she stores outside in rubber maid totes, and they have access to her moms mud room, where they store their cheeses for aging in the families fridge. When I asked her how it is to make cheese in a travel trailer, she answered in her typical cheerful fashion, “its not as convenient, but its manageable. We’re Doing it!”.
Most of the families dairy is produced in trailer, by Jaclyn. She says that her big family can drink nearly a gallon of milk a day. At the beginning, Jaclyn, used the majority of Darla’s cream for butter, but her family was going through so much, that these days most of the milk is left full cream, and butter is bought at the store. An arrangement that works well for the family, as Jaclyn puts it “we like fatty cheese”.
As for Aaron, he can tolerate the milk as long as it has been fermented into either cheese or yogurt. However, digesting fresh, raw milk is still difficult for him. Jaclyn hopes to one day get a milk cow with A2 milk.
I was excited to talk with her about this, as A2 dairy is something I know nothing about. A milk cow that produces milk that is termed A2 dairy, is milk that mostly lacks the A1 casein protein, and is comprised more of the A2 casein protein.
Jaclyn describes that it is easier for people to digest, and she says that people are feeling better on A2 milk. Becoming more popular, she says that you can even purchase, a commercial brand of A2 milk at some stores in BC.
Having Darla tested to see what her genes are, is something that Jaclyn would like to do. If Darla has the right genes, she could be bred to an A2 bull, and they would have a chance of producing an A2 calf, hopefully a heifer. The testing is as easy as sending a few of Darla’s tail hairs away, or obtaining a blood draw.
Jaclyn hopes that Darla would have the right genes to produce an A2 calf, but knowing that, that may not be an option, she has her name on a wait list for an A2 cow in BC. She also knows of a dairy farm in BC, that would be willing to test their cows to see if they produce A2 milk.
This is an important subject for Jaclyn, as food sensitivities are something that her family has struggled with for many years. Both gluten and dairy have caused problems for her family. In fact, Jaclyn started making sourdough a few years ago, to help with her families gluten sensitivity.
Jaclyn laughed as she describes having to pack along bread, cheese, milk and even ranch dip, when they visit friends, so that her family will have safe options to eat. Even Josh, who has never had a problem with dairy before Darla, finds himself now sensitive to commercial dairy, after months of good quality raw milk.
Jaclyn says that cheesemaking was not an easy start for her. At the beginning she struggled with knowing what the curds should look and feel like, and she found pressing her cheeses, to be difficult. Never the less, she says she was so passionate. She had me in a fit of giggles as she recounted the time that she brought a brining cheese on vacation with her, only to decide that it was a failed attempt, and feed it to the pigs a week later, when she returned home.
Learning to make sourdough first, is something that has really helped Jaclyn in her cheesemaking journey. For a time, she had baked sourdough for a local store and, she says
I am glad I learned to make sourdough first, because a lot of it is the same, there is a technique, there is temperature, there is timing, there is rhythms and a lot of it is, you have to learn the feel of it. I used to be very technical with my sourdough, especially when we were baking 40 loaves a week. But now, they may look bad, but they taste fine. So if the cheese looks silly, its fine, if it doesn’t turn out exactly how you thought, well you just made a new kind of cheese!
What’s next for the Neufeld family? Jaclyn is trying to put as much cheese away, as she can before the baby is born. She says that when she wakes up in the morning, she is like “didn’t have the baby last night, guess I will do some more projects”.
She is stocking away mostly butterkase cheese, and some gouda, knowing that when the baby comes, some of the milk will have to go to the dogs. Josh, has asked her to rest and let some of the milk go to the dogs now, but Jaclyn is refusing, and is happy to make all the cheese while she can.
You can follow the Neufeld Family’s homestead journey on Instagram!
Also read why I think cheesemaking should be the sourdough of 2021 here! More cheesemaker interviews are coming in the next few weeks. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter so you can be the first to know, when they are posted.
Thank you to Jaclyn for letting me share your story, and as always, Happy Cheesemaking!
Robyn
Newsletter Sign Up form
It was so fun to chat with you Robyn! Much love <3 Thanks for sharing a bit of our story!!!