The Guild met at the Augusta Civic Center on the first day of the annual Maine Agricultural Trade Show with a good group of members and non-members alike, featuring a visit by Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (US House member for Maine’s 1st district) who is also a member of the Agriculture Committee, and is working hard to include small farm assistance in the upcoming renewal of the Farm Bill. We also discussed our upcoming workshops, and decided to offer scholarships for them before opening the floor to questions and/or comments from old and new cheese makers alike.
Meeting: Holiday Party @ Pineland Farms Creamery
Our annual Holiday Party was held in New Gloucester at Pineland Farms Creamery, including a catered lunch for Guild members and their guests. Over thirty folks helped us toast our Guild’s accomplishments in 2011, as well as inspired us toward new goals in 2012.
For our Christmas Cheese-taculor this year, many attending brought a batch of Christmas Cove Cottage Cheese for everyone to sample. The one gallon recipe yields about three pints of cottage cheese, so we had asked that everyone contribute: one pint of plain, and one pint of flavored (your choice of add-ins).
We voted on our favorite plain as well as favorite flavored batch, and the winners were:
- PLAIN: Forage Farm — Diane Schivera, cheesemaker
- FLAVORED: Silvery Moon Creamery (Cranberry Ginger)– Dorothee Grimm and Rachel Lauriat, cheesemakers
Thanks to everyone who participated!
–Eric Rector
President, Maine Cheese Guild
Beginner Cheese Workshop Dec 6th in Orono
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.