The University of Maine Cooperative Extension in Orono, along with Appleton Creamery, successfully held a Beginner Cheesemaking workshop to be held at UMaine, Hitchner Hall on Dec. 6 from 9:00am to 4:00pm taught by Caitlin Hunter (from Appleton Creamery) and Beth Calder (from the UMO Cooperative Extension program).
This workshop is taught hands-on and low tech. We had 12 people attend. We made jack, 30 minute mozzarella, and ricotta cheeses out of cows milk and co-mingled goat and cows milk for the jack. We used common kitchen utensils to produce the cheese in our Commercial Kitchen at UMaine to give beginners the confidence to produce cheese in their home kitchen (for the hobbyists). We also had people attend that may produce cheese commercially, but gives them the introduction on understanding the common cheese making steps, and provides the opportunity to experience hands-on subtle curd/texture changes that are important in producing quality cheeses.
The cows milk was organic cows milk from Grassland Farm in Skowhegan and Appleton Creamery provided the goats milk.
Beth Calder and Caitlin Hunter demonstrate how to determine the rennet set time.
Our annual meeting was held at State of Maine Cheese Co., located on Route 1 in Rockport. We reviewed our year, we re-elected Cathe Morrill (State of Maine Cheese Co.) to another board term, as well as to the Vice Presidency (congratulations Cathe, and thank you for arranging for lunch), we set our 2012 meeting schedule (found on the 
Our October meeting was hosted by Turner Farm in North Haven, a ferry ride from Rockland. Despite an overcast morning, we got a tour of the farm and all of its projects (cheese, pork, beef, chicken, turkeys, eggs, and lots of vegetables), a wonderful lunch, an informative workshop on yogurt making and lactic cheeses, and then had a delightful ride in the sun back to Rockland.
