Curd Collection

Milk from a local dairy is first pasteurized before it is ready for cheesemaking.  When the milk is at ninety degrees the first ingredient, cheese culture, is added to the milk.  Cheese culture, which activates the milk and turns the milk sugars into lactic acid, is also a key ingredient to identifying the cheese’s character after aging.  The next ingredient added is rennet.  This ingredient is an enzyme that causes the milk to coagulate, a very fascinating part of cheese making, as the cheese sets up like custard in approximately twenty minutes.

It is then time to cut the curd.  This is done by placing curd knives into the vat.  These curd knives are basically sets of wires that run horizontally and vertically and cut the entire vat from top to bottom into quarter inch cubes.  These cubes are very soft and fragile at first but as they cook, they firm up and continue to release more whey.  Cooking the curd is a very delicate process as we heat the vat with steam from ninety degrees to 102 degrees only allowing it to rise two degrees every five minutes.  When the curd is completely cooked we will have 600 pounds of curds from 6000 pounds of milk.  Approximately ten percent becomes cheese.

Once the curds are cooked and have reached the correct consistency, we push them to the back of the vat and drain off the whey.  The whey that has been drained is eventually spread on neighboring farm fields as fertilizer.  Whey is a byproduct of cheese making but when processed, can be found in other foods we eat as well as some animal feeds.

The curds will knit together in the bottom of the vat.  Using a large knife, we will cut them to form large slabs of cheese.  These slabs are rotated and stacked every fifteen minutes as they continue to release more whey, firming up and consolidating.  This is called the cheddaring process.  

At this point it is time to “cut the curd.”  We do this by feeding the slabs through a curd mill, which cuts the slabs into finger-sized pieces called cheddar cheese curds.  The curds are salted and sometimes find customers waiting for them, warm and fresh, straight from the vat!

We guarantee all products to arrive in satisfactory condition to the address given if delivery can be made when first attempted. Delivery services will not forward our packages and many of our gifts can’t stand reshipping. We cannot assume responsibility for perishable products if we are given an incorrect address.

Orders are shipped Monday through Friday. Consideration is given when shipping to warmer climates to ensure fastest shipping methods. We ship our products UPS or USPS.

Orders are processed and shipped Monday through Friday. When shipping to warmer climates, we avoid shipping over the weekend.

Time Most orders arrive between 3-6 business days, depending on processing time and destination. If you would like your order to arrive on a specific time frame, please make note of this in the comment section of your order.