#cheese underground

[marcellathecheesemonger]

Meet Jeanne Carpenter, ACS CCP™

Meet Jeanne Carpenter, ACS CCP™

Meet Jeanne Carpenter, ACS CCP™

I met Jeanne in 2010 at the ACS Conference in Seattle. I got lucky and worked with Jeanne, preparing cheese displays for the Festival of Cheese. Her tips on merchandising cheese proved invaluable in my career as a monger. In addition to thanking her for sharing her knowledge, I am also grateful that she agreed to participate in my Q&A for the website.

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[cheesenotes]

Cheese Underground: Announcing the 2014 American Artisan Cheese Series

Jeanne Carpenter, Wisconsin cheese expert and blogger at Cheese Underground, announces a new series of classes to take place at the Firefly Coffeehouse in Oregon, Wisconsin: 

Exciting news, cheese geeks! If you're looking for a monthly night out, tasting and learning about new artisan cheeses, then Wisconsin Cheese Originals has a deal for you. Tonight, I'm announcing my all new 2014 American Artisan Cheese Series with monthly classes at the Firefly Coffeehouse in Oregon, Wis. This will mark the third year of the monthly classes, which include a tasting and storytelling of at least four artisan cheeses. I also often bring in guest speakers, such as Wisconsin cheesemakers, dairy farmers, and industry leaders. Classes begin at 7 p.m. at the Firefly Coffeehouse at 114 N. Main St. in Oregon, Wis., just 10 minutes south of Madison. Each class includes a complimentary glass of wine, beer or beverage. Cost is $22 per class and tickets must be reserved in advance at www.wicheeseclass.com. All classes typically sell out.

As a special offer through January 1, 2014: purchase a season pass to all 12 classes and get two classes for free, a perfect gift for your favorite cheese geek.

The 2014 class line-up includes:

January 16: Gourmet Grilled Cheese February 11: Blue-Veined Cheeses & The Wines That Love Them March 13: Fondue Fun & Swiss Specialties April 17: World Champion Cheeses May 13: Butter Makes Everything Better June 12: American Farmstead Cheeses July 15: Summer Break: Sassy Cow Ice Cream  August 21: Pasture-Based Cheeses September 16: Wisconsin Women Cheesemakers October 14: Amuse Bouche Cheeses November 13: Cheesecake and Dessert Cheeses December 9: Ultimate Wisconsin Cheddar Throwdown 

All classes are for sale individually, as well as in a season package at: www.wicheeseclass.com. I look forward to seeing you there!

(Photo ©2013 Cheese Underground)

[cheesesociety-blog]

Today’s guest post comes from Jeanne Carpenter, co-chair of this year’s ACS Conference & Competition in Madison, Wis. Jeanne is the author of the Cheese Underground blog and the founder of Wisconsin Cheese Originals and the Wisconsin Artisan Cheesemaker Guild. She recently added cheesemonger to her many titles as she works to become an ACS Certified Cheese Professional™.

  So you’re traveling to Madison for the American Cheese Society in August? Here are five ways to become a true member of America’s Dairyland.

  1.     Eat deep fried cheese curds until you’re sick

Just like Friday fish fries, Jell-O salads, and beer brats, deep-fried cheese curds are uniquely Wisconsin. In downtown Madison, dozens of restaurants offer deep-fried curds as an appetizer or side, and some are even transforming the once lowly fair-food into a top-shelf item. Around the Square, check out the deep fried beauties at The Old Fashioned, Tipsy Cow or Graze. For best results, pair with a local craft beer, because it’s always best to mix hot oil and cheese with a little fermented yeast.

  2.     Drink beer with a cheesemaker

Madison is home to a thriving craft beer culture, with a half dozen brewpubs located within a couple blocks of the Square. On July 31, buy a $10 Pub Crawl ticket at the ACS Registration desk and buy a pint to drink with one of 18 different Wisconsin cheesemakers hanging out at six different downtown taverns. Visit them all, and you can enter to win a free ACS Registration for next year.

  3.     Get Your Shop On Down State Street

Madison is a university town, and in the fall, winter and spring, State Street – a pedestrian-only, six-block shopping boulevard, is crowded with students. In good news, it’s summer, so you’ll have it to yourself. Full of eclectic shops and restaurants, State Street is THE place to see and be seen in Madison. Walk to the end and enjoy an ice cream cone at the UW-Madison Union, and sit on the pier while watching sailboats cruise Lake Mendota.

  4.     Eat a Picnic on the Capital Lawn

During the lunch hour and extending well into the afternoon, the four sides of the state capital lawn transform into the city’s unofficial picnic spot for downtown workers and visitors. Grab a sandwich and cheese plate from Fromagination, walk across the street, and people watch as you enjoy a cheesy snack. Warning: the lawn is famous for its influx (some might say infestation) of squirrels, so guard that sandwich accordingly.

  5.     Explore the Capital City Path via B Cycle

A paved bike/walking path starts downtown and rings Lake Monona, enticing many a visitor to hop on a rented bicycle or hoof it around the lake. Buy a B-Cycle pass for just $3 – a special discount for conference attendees from the normal $5 rate (there are two stations on West Wilson, on either side of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, just one block up from the Monona Terrace) – and explore the Capital City Path for an afternoon on wheels. Find information about public restroom stops and drinking fountains at Bike Madison. Be sure and stop to feed the ducks your leftover sandwich on Lake Monona or enjoy the sunset in Olin Park. Pedal back before dark to enjoy the view of the Capital lit up at night.

[cheesenotes]

Study: Pasture Cheeses are "Quantifiably Different"

Via Cheese Underground, a new report confirms what was always understood but perhaps not confirmed on a scientific level: Cheese from grass-fed cows is quantifiably different: 

New Research Concludes Pasture Cheeses are "Quantifiably Different"

A final report soon to be published by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture concludes something every cheesemaker and cheese enthusiast has suspected for years: that there are "quantified differences in color, texture, melting points and other attributes" between pasture-fed and conventional dairy products, especially cheese and butter.  

An upcoming report titled: "Growing the Pasture-Grazed Dairy Sector in Wisconsin," is the conclusion of a four-year research project led by Laura Paine, grazing and organic specialist at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture. Paine pursued grant funding for the project after research by Dr. Scott Rankin at the University of Wisconsin in 2005 showed pasture-fed cheddar cheese was creamier in texture and more golden in color than the same cheese produced from the milk of confinement-fed cows.

While the research failed to identify a single compound or "smoking gun" to explain the differences the team found between pasture-fed and conventional milk, both the scientists and chefs noted "quantifiable differences" in color, texture and melting points. Dr. Rankin noted that pasture milk has a "grassy note."

In a side-by-side comparison of the Wisconsin cheeses (see photo above), the grass-fed cheese, on the left, is slightly more golden. The aroma is more earthy and fruity, while the conventional cheese on the right, simply smells clean and milky. The flavors are also distinctly different. The pasture-fed cheese is more complex with a lingering finish. The conventional cheese is more of a one-note cheese with a clean finish.

"When you taste the two side by side, there is no doubt a remarkable difference," says dairy farmer Bert Paris, who farms using rotational grazing, and whose milk was used to make the pasture-fed cheese in September. "It validates everything we've been saying for years."

Read the full post over on Cheese Underground. 

(Photo ©2013 Cheese Underground)

[cheesenotes]

Culture Cocktails: A Cheesemaker's Best Kept Secret?

Jeanne Carpenter at the excellent cheese blog Cheese Underground has an interesting piece about "Adjunct Cultures", aka "American cheesemaker's best-kept secret." This is particularly interesting to me because on Day 3 of my recent trip up to the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese (VIAC), we had a series of lectures from cultures expert Steven Funk, in which he specifically discussed adjunct cultures, and the ways in which they are being used.  In some cases positively, as in the cases of small cheesemakers who tweak their mixes to give their cheese a more complex flavor (for example, adding a thermophilic culture to a mesophilic cheese: even though it never hits thermophilic temperatures, the secondary cultures are still active enough to affect the final flavor). 

There were also more questionable uses, for example, large commercial cheese producers (although he politely, but firmly, declined to name any), which will attempt to "cheat" their cheeses by commissioning complex cocktails of cultures with the goal, for example, of giving a young cheese an "aged" flavor, thereby getting into the supermarket coolers a 6-month cheese that tastes like it's been carefully aged for 2 years, which would have obvious commercial benefits, but would also be a threat to those cheese makers without million-dollar R&D budgets who have to age it the old-fashioned way.

So having just learned of it there, it was interesting to see it coming up again, in relation to a Cook's Illustrated cheese tasting (that I originally blogged about here).

When 21 staff members of Cook’s Illustrated recently sampled 10 American artisanal cheddars, proceeded to rate each on flavor, texture, and sharpness, and then published the results, I'm pretty sure they had no idea they were about to expose what is one of the best kept secrets in the cheesemaking world: the rise of using "culture cocktails" to enhance Old World favorites and create New World originals...

...In a copy block titled "Culture Shock," the article wonders why Prairie Breeze - ultimately dubbed as the magazine's favorite cheddar in its taste-testing exercise, can taste so different from similarly packaged cheeses also labeled as cheddars:

So how could two cheeses aged for the same amount of time and packaged the same way embody such different flavors? According to (Dean) Sommer, (a cheese and food technologist at the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research), the moisture level of the cheeses could play a role, but so could each maker’s specific blend of bacteria. In fact, the bacterial culture in our favorite cheddar (Prairie Breeze) likely had a big influence on its flavor. This cheese maker takes the culturing process to another level by adding a second round of bacterial cultures to its cheese. We learned from Sommer that it’s not just a repeat of the first culture cocktail; these secondary bacteria are strains more typically found in Parmesan and Emmentaler than in cheddar, lending the cheese the subtle “butterscotch-y” and “gamy” undertones that earned tasters’ highest praise.

This discovery prompts the tasting team to then go back and check the culturing details of every other cheddar they had tasted:

As it turned out, the particularly “toasty,” “earthy,” “complex” flavors of two other cheddars, including our close runner-up (Cabot Cellars at Jasper Hill Clothbound Cheddar), are also the result of that second dose of alternative bacteria. So much for plain-Jane American cheddar. 

And so much for an American cheesemaker's best-kept secret.

In the past few years, I've watched a growing number of American cheesemakers begin using "adjunct cultures" in their cheeses. Some even have specific "culture cocktails" they commission from culture houses made especially - and only - for them. And that's fine. Adding cultures to the milk to make cheese has always been part of the process.

But two weeks ago, I inadvertently walked into an industry meeting where a new culture house, having just opened up shop in the U.S. a few weeks before, boasted its ability to translate every customer's need or demand into a "just right" culture.

Read the full piece here. 

(Illustration ©2012 Cheese Underground)