Guild ACS Opportunities For 2012

Posted on May 7, 2012August 29, 2014 by President

–Once again the Guild will pay for your FIRST ACS competition entry ($60 per entry — you need to be an ACS member to enter)
—the deadline for on-time competition entries is May 18th, so if you haven’t already submitted your entry forms, do so soon, and then send Mark Whitney your receipt for reimbursement.

–Once again the Guild will help pay for shipping your entries — up to $50 per participating Guild member. Once you have notified the Guild that you will be sending entries, we will attempt to coordinate a best and most cost-effective means of transport.

–This year the Guild will reimburse ONE Guild cheese maker for an ACS Level 1 Professional membership (a $199 value).
—To qualify to be chosen to receive this free membership for 2012 please respond to this email me your name and say “Add Me For A Free Membership” in the body of the email BEFORE Sunday, May 13th and your name will go into a hat. The randomly chosen member will be notified, and once they get receipt for joining the ACS the Guild will reimburse them.

–Once again The Guild wants to send up to FOUR Guild members to the ACS Conference for the full conference experience. The Guild will offer scholarships of at least $900 in expenses toward attending, which will cover the Conference fee of $465 plus some of the travel and lodging expenses.
—To obtain a scholarship email me your name and write “Add Me For A Conference Scholarship” in the body of the email BEFORE Sunday, May 13th and your name will pass on to all non-entered board members who will vote for the four Guild scholarship winners. If fewer than four Guild members apply for the scholarships, the total scholarship money will divided among the attending Guild winners up to but not exceeding their total expenses. The scholarship winners will each be responsible for at least one newsletter article about their conference experience, and for bringing as much of the information they’ve gathered back to future Guild meetings.
–The scholarship winners will be notified on Monday, May 14th so that they can register for the conference BEFORE the early bird deadline of May 23rd.

The results are in:

The Guild subsidized ACS membership goes to: Heather Donahue of Balfour Farm.

The four partial scholarships to attend the ACS Conference were awarded to:
  —Jessie Dowling, Fuzzy Udder Creamery
  —Heather Donahue, Balfour Farm
  —Eric Rector, Monroe Cheese Studio
  —Jamien Shields, Turner Farm Creamery

On behalf of the Guild, congratulations.

Now, We’ve Got The Blues

Posted on April 24, 2012April 24, 2012 by Monroe Cheese Studio

The British Blue Cheese Workshop led by Kathy Biss from West Highland Dairy in Scotland took place last weekend and the participating Guild members all took a lot away from it — information as well as workshop cheese that they will now age!

We made four recipes in two different milks for contrast:

Blue Leicester — goats milk
Ascaig Blue — cows milk
Strathdon Blue — goats and cows milk
Lymeswold — goats and cows milk

The first two are made with scalded curd for a firmer texture, more mechanical holes, and longer aging potential. The last two have a much higher moisture content, and the Lymeswold actually incorporates a bloomy rind with the blue interior, though it will age no more than four to six weeks.

The contrast between all of these recipes provided and excellent background on what is needed to adapt any recipe to a blue recipe, and how to work with Penicillium roqueforti, which digests the milk fats for its distinctive flavors, but requires oxygen to grow. That’s why piercing cheese wheels is necessary to allow blue to grow inside.

As with any workshop, much of the information applied to cheese making of all kinds, and most importantly what to do when your make isn’t progressing the way you would like. In this case we needed to re-warm the buckets in which we were making the Strathdon Blue on the second day because the acid was not developing, which was evident because the curd was slow to reach the right texture.

Overall a great experience for Maine (and beyond Maine) cheese makers.

Kathy Biss will return the following weekend to lead a workshop on making Hard British Cheeses.

Monroe Cheesemaker Ruffles Some Feathers

Posted on April 19, 2012April 19, 2012 by Monroe Cheese Studio

Last weeks some folks in the Guild asked if I would go to the State House when the Farmer Brown supports marched on April 17th to provide the prospective of a licensed dairy processor.

There was a bunch of media there for the march (much of it was there for the Governor’s signing of new domestic violence laws earlier in the day), and I was interviewed after the media finished talking with the demonstrators. Here are links (WLBZ, and WABI) to the two stories that have been broadcast on TV news so far about the issue.

(I made it clear to reports that I was also President of the Maine Cheese Guild and that I supported the Guild’s Quality Statement, but so far they have preferred to identify me only as the owner of Monroe Cheese Studio.)

Use the comments section to let me know what you think.