Category Archives: Guild

Info about the Guild

Meeting: Fuzzy Udder Creamery in Unity May 7

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We had a very productive meeting held at the Fuzzy Udder Creamery in Unity on Monday, May 7th, including a tour of Jessie’s newly inspected and licensed creamery which is impressive in it’s simplicity and efficient design. We also heard from Barbara Skapa about several marketing opportunities for cheese makers interested in teaming up with Maine distributors, as well as a question about how the Guild should best market itself. That lead to a effort that Karen Trenholm will explore to put together a printed brochure with a cheese map inside that could be distributed state wide for summer visitors to use, as well as for Open Creamery Day. We hope to see a proposal for making this happen at the next Guild meeting in June.

We also had a spirited discussion about the efforts being made to exempt dairy licensing from small commercial dairy producers, which is something this Guild had often argued against. There will be more about that in another post that will include the crux of their argument.

Queso Rexo

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This is a recipe that we learned at the Culture Workshop given by Rex Infanger on March 26, 2012. It’s something that he developed as a way of demonstrating cheesemaking techniques in less than an hour. The result is a tasty Queso Fresco type of cheese with a real cultured flavor given the addition of a cultured dairy product to provide instant acidity.

Here is a PDF version of the recipe.

QUESO REXO

Makes about 1 pound cheese in about 55 minutes.

1 gallon milk (whole or skim or anything in between)
1 quart cultured buttermilk (mesophilic) OR active yogurt (thermophilic)
0.5 ml double-strength rennet OR 1.0 ml single strength rennet
2.5% salt by weight of the milled curd

Heat milk to 95 degrees F.

Add rennet. When set firm (which shouldn’t take more than 3 to 5 minutes) immediately cut into 1/2 inch cubes.

Stir curds (VERY gently at first) while you raise the heat to 116 degrees F. Once at 116 degrees stir for 15 minutes.

Drain curds into cheesecloth and press with 5 pounds (while keeping the curds warm) for 15 minutes.

Mill curds into small pieces, weigh them, measure out the 2.5% salt (around 0.5 oz or 15 grams), mix, then pack back into the cheesecloth and press with 5 pounds of pressure again for at least 15 minutes before slicing to taste. If you have the time, allow to remain pressing for a few hours before unmolding.

The cheese is ready to eat immediately.

Goats Galore in VT

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As reported by VTDigger.org: Creamery + Foundation will partner to create state’s biggest goat dairy. Vermont Butter and Cheese Creamery is teaming up with the Castanea Foundation and Vermont Technical College to create a 700 – 800 goat dairy farm that will provide more VT milk to VBCC as well as help train future goat dairy farmers as well as provide a better understanding for how goat dairies differ from cow dairies in practices and economics. It’s a great example of how public-private partnerships can benefit an entire industry.