“You have to cut it right,” says Brian Gilbert, Beecher’s head cheesemonger. We set it very carefully and cut by hand.” It looks like cheesemakers pulling harps, but there is a lot to it. “We could automate it,” Gougar says, “but doing it by hand gives us feel and dexterity and we can leverage that into quality by the rate at which we cut. The rennet addition is so exacting that Beecher’s uses a scale measuring to the tenth of a gram.Īs the process continues, cheesemakers wield hand-strung stainless-steel wire harps-each harp includes 280 feet of wire-to manually cut the vat, all while customers consume Beecher’s mac & cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, and more just feet away. The rennet helps start the coagulation process, turning milk into curds. With the lactic acid started by the bacteria in the starter culture, the third ingredient comes in the form of a plant-based rennet, mimicking the rennet in a calf’s stomach that helps it digest the difficult molecules of milk.
Beechers mac and cheese best full#
During the 15-month aging process of most Beecher’s cheeses, the starter cultures metabolize the cheese to build a greater depth of flavor, create texture, and impart melting behaviors-“all the things that make cheese what it is is because of the starter culture.”Īn hour later, 90-degree milk full of starter culture produces lactic acid, starting the conversion to cheese. The milk comes into the vat at 6.7 pH, but will likely hit about 5.3 pH by the end of the process. As the tank fills, Beecher’s adds starter culture, a carefully selected strain of bacteria that not only helps to send the pH downhill, but also encourages aging. The milk then enters an open vat, visible to the public behind that glass, while mechanical agitators keep it moving. “We can pasteurize very quickly and use that time for other quality actions.” “We feel it is gentle on the milk and gives us access to precision of temperature control,” Gougar says.
Jersey milk has the highest butterfat content of any milk used for cheesemaking, and that precision gives Beecher’s the exact characteristics it needs for its slow-paced production.įrom there, cheesemakers clad in white lab coats and hair nets start the pasteurizing process, running the milk through high temperatures for a short time. “It is not just some Jersey, but 30 percent,” Gougar says. ( The lower the number, the better the quality and the safer the milk.)Įvery day 4,600 gallons of milk from the two farms - 30 percent Jersey milk and 70 percent Holstein, a blend Beecher’s chooses for quality and flavor- arrives at Pike Place Market around 3 a.m. The result gives Beecher’s milk a somatic cell count that’s a quarter to a half of the European standard, which is already half of the standard allowed in the United States. “It is one of the defining characteristics of the product we produce.”įrom good animal welfare and nutrition at the farm to fresh cold milk that isn’t temperature-abused between the farm and the vat: Beecher’s works directly with the farm to monitor the diets of cows, plan for seasonal changes in cow environment, and to use high-quality tanker trucks to transport the milk directly from the farm’s milking parlor to Beecher’s Pike Place location. “The milk is the primary raw material we use,” Gougar says. Beecher’s relies on two local family farms, Green Acres Dairy and Groeneveld Farms, to provide all milk needed at the Seattle plant. “It is all out the window if you use bad quality,” he says. To understand the cheesemaking process through those weeks and months, Gougar says, you’ve got to follow the milk. “We listen to the cheese and give it what it wants.” The Tech of Cheese “Our cheesemaker personally handles every pound and every curd through the process.” Producing just 4,000 pounds of cheese a day in open vats and not enclosed in a tank, Beecher’s can take the hands-on control with its small scale while still carefully measuring data points and embracing technology throughout the process. “What is so wonderful about cheesemaking is it involves a connection with the cheesemaker,” says Jon Gougar, a Wisconsin native and Beecher’s vice president of cheesemaking. Beecher’s shop connects people-to cheese, to craftsmanship, and to the patient but painstaking process of doing things the right way. When Beecher’s opened its doors in November 2003-making quite the bet that the cheese it had started crafting in 2002 would pass muster-the shop was more than the culmination of Dammeier’s dream to make artisanal cheese in Seattle, and more than the culmination of his culinary vision in the signature Flagship cheese, which is best described as a cross between a cheddar and Gruyère. “We listen to the cheese and give it what it wants.”
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