From Start to Finish
Everything Under One Roof
While our goats graze in nearby pastures, all of our cheese is crafted right here inside our century-old barn in Cambria, California. From milking to production and aging, every single step happens on-site.
Our creamery is where all the delicious cheesy magic happens. Inside the barn, we have three main areas for each stage of the cheesemaking process: the milking parlor, the creamery, and the aging room.
Direct from the source
The Milking Parlor
Fresh goat milk is pumped from the milking parlor daily, traveling through our pipeline system, through a filter and into a 200 gallon bulk tank.
The milking parlor is where the first part of our production begins... if you don’t count the breeding, birthing, raising, feeding, pasture maintaining, snuggling, and general caretaking of the goats, that is!
Gently Pasteurized
From The Dairy to The Creamery
With our fresh goat's milk and local cow's milk, we then go through a careful low-temp pasteurization process to remove potentially harmful bacteria, while preserving the proteins and natural taste of the milk. This is opposed to the ultra or high-temp pasteurization that's often used at a larger industrial scale.
Art & Science
Adding Cultures and Rennet
After pasteurization, our cheesemakers add our proprietary blends of starter cultures to the milk.
The next ingredient we will add is rennet, an enzyme that reacts with the milk to coagulate the proteins (the milk solids), separating the solid curd from the liquid whey.
This step is crucial for creating different types of cheeses with various flavors, textures, and acidity.
Cutting the curd
Acidification and rennet cause the casein proteins in the milk to knit and the curd to “set”. Once the curd has set, it will have formed a jello-like mass. We then cut the curd with steel harps and “cook” the cheese activating heat loving bacteria.
For a firmer, drier cheeses like Cabrillo, the curd is cut into small, rice sized pieces, and is cooked longer, so more moisture is expelled from the curds. For a softer cheese like Ragged Point, the curd is cut into larger pieces and cooked less. Our cheesemakers know how to identify the look and feel of curds at the exact moment it is time to cease the cooking process.
Forming the wheels
Hooping
Hooping is where our cheese takes shape with different moisture contents and textures.
Softer fresh cheeses set overnight, and drain in bags under their own weight.
Our triple crème cheeses are drained out of our vat into form moulds where they drain under their own weight for 24 hours.
For our hard cheeses, the liquid whey is drained, and we scoop the curd into perforated moulds. We then press all the moulds under weights overnight to expel more of the whey. In the morning we will pull the basket out, and we will have a firm but fragile wheel of cheese.
Seasoning the cheese
Salt is Our Friend
We use salt to control the fermentation process. Our soft cheeses have salt mixed in by weight. The triple crèmes are expertly salted by hand. And our hard cheeses take a bath in our saturated brine solution to get them to the perfect level of seasoning.
The aging process
Inside the Caves
Our team of cheesemakers and affineurs (the French word for people who care for aging cheeses) diligently care for our cheeses for anywhere from a few days to two years. This involves flipping, brushing, smelling, and tasting the wheels to find the optimal time for their release.
Ready to enjoy
Simple Ingredients, Complex Results
Explore our cheeses to learn more about what makes each one unique!