Beginner Cheese Making Workshops
Appleton Creamery is again offering their winter series of workshops for beginner cheese makers. They offer three different takes on cheese making: Home Cheese Making, French Fun, and Goat Cheese 101, all taught by nationally recognized award winning cheese maker Caitlin Hunter. Even if you just want to learn more about the cheese you love to eat, these classes will introduce you to the mystery of cheese making.
Workshop Scholarships
The Guild has decided to offer two scholarships to each of our upcoming intermediate/advanced workshops that would reimburse the scholarship winners for HALF the cost of the workshop fee.
Anyone interested in receiving a scholarship will be a member in good standing of the Maine Cheese Guild and should send their contact information, plus a paragraph describing your operation, to info@mainecheeseguild.org before February 13th. Submissions will be reviewed and voted upon by the MCG board, and scholarship winners will be announced by the end of February.
2012 Workshops
The Maine Cheese Guild will host two intermediate/advanced upcoming workshops featuring instructors from away. There are still beginner cheesemaking workshops offered this spring by Appleton Creamery, and the Guild may be able to organize one or more workshops featuring Guild instructors. Stay tuned to the web site for more info.
Get Cultured
MONDAY, MARCH 26th from 10am to 5pm
Pineland Farms Creamery, New Gloucester, Maine
Fee: $150 for non-members, $125 for members
Deposit: $50 per participant reserves your spot
1 Day workshop all about cheese cultures and molds, presented by Rex Infanger of Danisco, ideal for beginning cheese makers, as well as experienced cheese makers, because there is always more we need to know about the organisms that do all the work for us cheese makers.
British Blue Cheeses
SAT and SUN, APRIL 21-22nd from 9am to 5pm
State of Maine Cheese Co., Rockport, Maine
Fee: $300 for non-members, $250 for members
Deposit: $100 per participant reserves your spot
2 Day workshop focusing on British blue cheese making given by Scottish cheese maker Kathy Biss from West Highland Dairy that will be hands-on.
These workshops are limited in size. To reserve your spot send your contact info (including your email address) and a check for the appropriate deposit amount to:
Maine Cheese Guild
c/o Mark Whitney, Treasurer
Pineland Farms
32 Farm View Drive
New Gloucester, Maine 04260
Next Meeting: Spring Day Creamery in Durham
| February 20, 2012 | ||
| 10:00 AM | to | 2:00 PM |
Our next meeting will take place at Spring Day Creamery in Durham, recent ACS Award winner for their blue cheese! We will use this meeting to focus on Distribution: Issues, Questions, Experiences.
Guild Statement Related To Local Food Ordinances
The Maine Cheese Guild stands by it’s Quality Statement, issued in May 2009, with regard to the Local Food Ordinance proposals we have seen, and to the legislative bills introduced for the 2011 session (LD330 and LD366).
Our testimony against LD330, given to the Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry at the March hearing on this bill follows:
Read the rest of this entry »
TMC is still looking…
Posted by tidemillcreamery in Guild on December 23rd, 2011
Tide Mill Creamery is still looking for a 50-100 gallon vat pasteurizer. Send tips to tidemillcreamery (at) gmail.com.
We’re also on the hunt for:
An undercounter commercial-grade (fast) hot-water sterilizing dishwasher
Raw Milk Myths
There has been a lot of talk recently about how the State of Maine is against raw milk sales. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, Maine is one of only 10 states that allow the retail sale of raw milk from licensed producers.
Because of this, a great quantity of high-quality raw milk is available to Maine’s cheese makers, who have taken advantage of this source to produce more and more artisanal style cheeses that are making a positive impression around the country, and consistently winning national awards.
Mainers’ access to raw milk at the retail level is threatened by the sale of unregulated raw milk. Advocates for unregulated sales of raw milk undermine the longstanding — and rare — spirit of cooperation between Maine state regulators and its licensed raw milk producers, and thus threaten the livelihood of many family farms and cheese makers across the states who depend on these raw milk sales or on access to this legal source of raw milk.
If you have any questions about this issue, please read the Maine Cheese Guild’s Quality Statement, or contact the Maine Cheese Guild directly.
Meeting: Maine Agricultural Trade Show
| January 10, 2012 | ||
| 10:00 AM | to | 12:00 PM |
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
| December 12, 2011 | ||
| 12:00 PM | to | 4:00 PM |
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
| December 6, 2011 | ||
| 9:00 AM | to | 4:00 PM |
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.
