I organized my papers on the kitchen table, lined up my recording devices; an old broken iPhone, a cracked iPad, and a laptop which has the habit of shutting off periodically, 3 ways of recording; 3 chances more that this interview would be safe. I looked over my notes, took a breath, and dialed a number into my phone.
I had told Zach earlier in the day, “I’m still nervous about doing these interviews”. It was a lot for me, I am a shy, awkward person, a person who blunders through a normal conversation. Yet, here I was organizing interviews, asking people to take the time out of there busy days, and trusting me to tell their stories and do them justice.
“Hello”, Tiffany answered the phone in a cheerful voice, a voice that instantly brought me to ease. As she organized her young daughter, she said that she “had been looking forward to this interview, as she hadn’t really ever had a chance to talk with someone about cheese, so this was exciting!”.
Her words brought me a reminder; this is why I am doing this! Creating a community of cheesemakers, a community for a group of folks that are mostly self-taught, that may have never even talked to someone else that makes cheese. An opportunity for others to read the stories of cheesemakers and know that they are not alone, that others are trying, failing, learning, and most importantly getting cheese to their family’s tables, in all sorts of different ways.
Tiffany is relatively new to owning a milk cow and making aged cheeses. It was in November of 2020 that they first brought their milk cow, a jersey in the family. Suffering from Malnutrition, this jersey had had a calf in the spring, but was dry when she came to live with the family. Tiffany and her husband worked to improve her nutrition, and miraculously one day, Tiffany went out to her, and she had spontaneously started lactating. Her improved diet had brought her back into milk! Something which is often unheard of.
They started milking her twice a day and were getting 2.5 gallons a day. Soon Tiffany’s husband found another Jersey to purchase, and brought her home. The family is now getting about 6 gallons of milk a day, and for a big family of 7, a lot of milk is needed. Tiffany says that her family comes from the standpoint of wanting to raise as much of there own food as possible. Before owning milk cows, it wasn’t uncommon for the family to be spending $30-40 dollars a week on cheese. She says that “this was nothing fancy, just cheddar, and such for grating”.
10 years ago, Tiffany had developed an interest in the health benefits of raw milk. She says that she learned a lot from the Weston Price Foundation, and sought out a farm that offered a milk share. She was getting a few gallons a week of good quality raw milk, from this farm. Soon, after joining the milk share, the farm offered a simple beginners cheesemaking course. She took the class, and says “I was so sold, I was like I want to make cheese. This is so cool!”
If Tiffany had extra milk from the milk share, she would experiment with soft cheeses. Soon the family bought some goats, and she would milk them, making soft cheeses such as chevre, and feta.
Bringing the milk cows into the family, brought with it a whole new type of cheesemaking. Tiffany says,
When we started getting so much milk from the cows, I was like I am not just going to keep making soft cheeses and mozzarella, we need the full spectrum here, we are a family of people that eat a lot of different kinds of cheeses, we enjoy a lot of different flavours, I mean the sky Is the limit, you have the main ingredient there, and you just have to buy the cultures, and put in the time and effort, and be patient, and you can be rewarded with a lot of different types of cheeses, just from some cows milk.
Tiffany’s mud room is now filled to the brim with many different types of cheeses. In fact, she thinks in the last four months, that she has made approximately 10 or 11 types of hard-pressed cheeses. She says that it has been really fun for her to think about where she was 10 years ago with soft cheeses, and where she is now.
The shelves of an unplugged dehydrator, located in the family’s cool mud room, a make shift cheese cave, house a multitude of different types of cheeses; swiss style, cheddar, gouda, gruyere, brie, and camembert are some of the cheeses that line the racks.
So far, Tiffany says that the family has opened up a young cheddar, 2 months old, and a camembert. With excitement, she described to me, how “they tasted and looked exactly like they should”, which she says “was the biggest confidence boost”.
I was very impressed with the vast amount of cheeses Tiffany has squirreled away in the last 4 months, and I was eager to know, how she had been teaching herself.
She says she did a lot of reading, she bought a book, “Home Cheese Making”, by Ricki Carroll. Which she says she would recommend to other new cheesemakers. She scrolled through cheesemaking websites, and read many different recipes.
Tiffany, stopped the interview for a second, to turn off a timer, a reminder for a cheddar in the press that needed to be turned.
Circling back, she said, “It was kind of scary, just reading things online and than being like ok, you are going to go for it, you have to go for it, you have all this milk. So that is basically how I learned, just reading.”. She described “being brave, as being such a big thing” when learning to make aged cheeses.
Tiffany does most of the cheesemaking, but the rest of the family helps with the milking and care of the milk cows. Occasionally, if she is busy or her arm gets tired, Tiffany will sit one of her children on a stool in front of the cheese pot, book in hand, and have them stir while they read. Otherwise, the bulk of the cheesemaking falls to Tiffany, a burden she is happy to bear.
Everyday, once everyone is up and dressed, the family heads outside to feed the animals. In the mornings, Tiffany and her husband do the milking, while the evening milking falls to their two oldest daughters. Milking in the winter, has been an added challenge for the family, and Tiffany is eager for warmer weather. She had me chuckling, as she described a difficult day, where one of the cows, even though they had fresh straw to lay in, had lay in a large fresh cow plop, which had frozen to her udder. She says it is funny now, but it wasn’t at the time, her son ran back and forth from the house bringing multiple buckets of hot soapy water, as they tried to clean her udder from the frozen poop. She likened it to how when a surfer pees in his wet suit to keep warm, a cow lays in their poop. She says, “It was a hard day. I hope not to repeat that day!”
The milk is brought in from the barn and put into glass jars in the refrigerator. The next day it will be skimmed, the cream used for butter or other things, and the milk used for cheesemaking. Tiffany describes how she has been using mostly skimmed milk for her cheese, and unless a recipe calls differently, she has been satisfied with the results this way.
On cheesemaking days, Tiffany tries to get started as soon as possible by adding the culture in. She describes how it takes a huge chunk of her day, but how she does other things during cheesemaking. For example, her cheesemaking today went alongside cleaning bedrooms, and other daily tasks.
A part of cheesemaking that Tiffany really enjoys, is her daily check in with her aging cheeses. Sitting in the mud room, they are housed in plastic bags to keep the humidity in check, and she enjoys tending to them, oiling, smelling, and checking them for mold growth. I nodded in agreement, as we discussed how it was just another connection to your food. I laughed as she described her cheeses as being “kind of like a child, no, not like a child, maybe like a goldfish or something”. A living organism that needs to be cared for, similar to sourdough. In fact, she talked about how learning to make sourdough a few years ago, has helped with her cheesemaking journey.
Tiffany looks forward to a life of cheesemaking. Currently, she has 2 young heifers, that she hopes to eventually bring into the milk cow line up. She says she is planning out a few years in advance, for when they should be bred, and when they should come into milk. Her hope is that she can get her milk cows into a rotation, where she milks 2 of them for 6 months, and than the other 2 for the other 6 months of the year. This way each milk cow would have a good opportunity to rest.
She also talked to me about her plans for the future in terms of cheesemaking. The family plans to build a root cellar this year for their garden. I was so excited to learn how they are incorporating the ability to age cheeses into their cellar plans. She says,
I would love to make something that could be aged for a really long time, because we have so many other cheeses to eat. Kind of like a fine wine, and than you pull it down in a couple years. I defiantly dream of that, hopefully we will have that opportunity.
Feeling relaxed and having my cup filled to the brim after talking with Tiffany, I asked her if she had any advice for home cheesemakers, or people wanting to get into owning a milk cow? Cheerfully and passionately, Tiffany said,
Just go for it! Yes, you might get your pulse racing, “oh my gosh I’m going to make cheese”. As far as recipes you think, “oh I have to follow them to a T”, and you really do have to try, but you will be rewarded. The fact that I am making hard cheeses now after a couple months, anyone can do this, just go for it!
You can follow along with Tiffany’s homesteading journey on Instagram @thenightjar
Thank you to Tiffany for allowing me to share your story and submitting all of the pictures in this post.
Happy Cheesemaking!
Robyn