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Craft cheese
“On a handful of farms in Ohio, artisans perfect a specialty product"
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
John S. Long
Plain Dealer Reporter
For years, the United States was a Velveeta nation. It loved cheese, or at least Cheez Whiz.
But the days when cheese food products ruled are over. More real cheese is eaten in the United States than ever
before. And that is saying quite a bit for a commodity that was first made around 8,000 years ago and has been part
of this country's diet since Colonial times.
Americans consumed a little more than 8.8 billion pounds of cheese in 2004, (the last year figures were available),
according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
That is more than 30 pounds of cheese annually for every person in the country - three times as much cheese as
was consumed in 1970.
That amounted to $40 billion worth of cheese sold in 2004.
The top cheese in the United States is mozzarella, which isn't hard to fathom, given the number of pizzas consumed
in this country.
Nowhere is the growth in consumption greater than in specialty cheeses. Artisan and specialty cheese consumption
has grown five times faster than total cheese consumption in the past 10 years, according to a California Milk
Advisory Board study.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ There are fewer than 400 artisan and farmstead cheese makers in the country. Most are not big
businesses, but rather mom-and-pop operations run from family farms. Licensed farmstead cheese makers are the
rarest in the country, with fewer than 60 operating in the United States in 2005. Ohio, which is the nation's eighth-
biggest manufacturer of cheese, has only three licensed farmstead cheese makers, though another three are about
to obtain their commercial licenses.
"We're the fifth generation," said Dixie Scheiderer, owner of Buckeye Grove Farm. Scheiderer describes herself as a
"one man band" among Ohio's certified farmstead cheese manufacturers.
Scheiderer, who hails from what she calls the state's poorest county, Monroe, said there are plenty of other folks
making cheese in southeastern Ohio. All are descendants of the German and Irish who settled the area more than
100 years ago, she said.
"They make soft cheese, but just for themselves," she said. "They don't sell any of it."
Scheiderer's family farm was outside Columbus.
"That was until the city began to gobble us up," she said.
In 1977, urban encroachment led her to sell her nearly 150-year-old family farm. She and her husband, Jake, picked
up and started over outside Beallsville. On a dirt road about 30 miles southwest of Wheeling, W.Va., and surrounded
by deer-infested woods and emerald-green pastures, the Scheiderers no longer worry about anyone encroaching
on their property.
For years, Dixie Scheiderer made cheese from the high-fat, high-protein milk produced by her herd of 50 Jersey
cows. But like her neighbors, she made it just for family. Five years ago, Dixie decided to get her license from the
state to make cheese for the public. It took her three years to get the license.
"There are three of us now, and we're all girls, too," said Scheiderer. "Before 1900, dairy was a girls operation, so I
guess you could say we're a little bit of a throwback."
Farmstead cheese produced by a licensed maker must be made on the producer's own farm from milk originating on
that farm. Artisan cheese makers can purchase milk and make cheese on an approved farm or at another location,
even in a large factory. (Although most cheese makers agree that you have left the artisan category - no matter how
good the product is - when you begin to make many hundreds of pounds daily, and most of the work is done by
machines.)
Scheiderer makes her Gouda, muenster, Boerenkaas, Gruyere and other cheeses in a cinder block building built by
her husband. The spotless interior has a large tank she bought on eBay. The tank is used to stir and separate the
curds and whey. Her assorted tools hang on the wall. A room within the main room holds hundreds of pounds of
cheese aging on racks, their exteriors washed daily in various brine solutions.
Buckeye Grove Farm Muenster is a match for a world-class muenster from Alsace, France. Scheiderer's Gouda is
creamy and smooth. Unfortunately, the family's Gruyere was still aging.
In each of the past two years Scheiderer has doubled the previous year's production, yet still does not have enough
cheese to meet the demand.
Cheese making is easy; the marketing's hard
Walking into Dale and Jean King's massive barn 20-some miles west of Columbus is a far cry from the Scheiderer
farm. Sitting on the farm are two large homes, a couple of barns and several outbuildings.
In 1853, the King family began farming in the area that is now Columbus. Gradually, the family dairy farm lost more
than 500 acres to development, and when 100 yards were all that separated what was left of the farm from large
suburban-style subdivisions, the Kings decided to start a 484-acre dairy farm near London. Dale King's parents kept
some acreage and stayed at the original farm site.
"I was reading in the paper about a Georgia farm family that began making cheese and thought that might be a good
idea," he said.
He figured his proximity to Columbus and Dayton, as well as the large number of farm markets in the area, would
give them plenty of places to sell their cheese.
The Kings got the cheese operation going under the Oakvale Farmstead Cheese brand. Several years ago they
sold it to their daughter, Elizabeth, and her husband, Randy Finke.
Dale and Jean King started with ricotta. But after that experiment they decided that Gouda would be a better choice.
The rich and fatty milk from their purebred Holstein cows was better suited for creamy Gouda, and they also thought
that Gouda wasn't as common as cheddar.
Elizabeth began taking cheese-making courses at the University of Wisconsin. She then entered short programs in
Vermont, Connecticut and Canada before heading back to the farm to test her prowess in turning milk to cheese.
"She spent nearly six months trying to perfect the recipe," said Dale King. "And now we're making 250 to 300 pounds
a week."
Dale and Jean King market the cheese themselves. The amiable couple say marketing their four varieties - young
Gouda, aged Gouda, caraway Gouda and habanero Gouda - is the hardest part of the enterprise. Making cheese
itself is comparatively easy.
"Being a dairy farmer in the past, I never had to deal with marketing and the public," said Dale King. "Now I am down
at North Market [in Columbus] every Saturday. It's been good for us, but a real challenge. I never talked for a living,
but now we do, and are getting the hang of it."
Crafting a product to match the milk
Not far from the town of Scio, near the birthplace of General George Armstrong Custer, is Ohio's newest farmstead
cheese farm. Bill and Kebria Dye moved into a 150-year-old brick home about 25 miles west of Steubenville and
began the farm life with cattle, sheep, horses and plenty of work.
Bill Dye is a pilot for US Airways. Because pilots' flight time is regulated, Dye gets several-day stretches to be home
on the farm, helping his wife and six children with cheese making and farm chores. Kebria Dye is the chief cheese
maker.
Unlike the other farmstead cheese operations in Ohio, the Dyes decided to make one cheese, cheddar. But this is
no ordinary cheddar cheese. In fact, few in this country have had a cheddar like the one carrying the Colonial
Classics Farmstead Cheese label, the name of the Dyes' operation.
It's crumbly, not a slick, glossy, elastic cheddar. With its light golden hue, a slightly nutty flavor and a good, long and
enjoyable aftertaste, Colonial Classics is similar to a great English cheddar.
Kebria Dye said there is something to the grass her herd of slightly under 50 cows eats that gives the cheese its
classic flavor. In fact, all of the farmstead cheese makers say that the feed - mostly grass - plays an essential role in
the flavor of their cheese. The best flavors often appear from late summer to December, which is why most
farmstead cheese in Ohio is made from early spring to late fall.
Word has obviously spread about products such as Colonial Classics cheddar. Dye said she has been selling the
cheese on the Internet throughout the country. She had just shipped an order to Hawaii the day she was interviewed
at her farm.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
jlong@plaind.com, 216-999-4564”
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