Wisconsin Cheese Tour 2010

I was fortunate enough to travel to Wisocnsin for a 4-day whirlwind (I've always wanted to use that word about my travels...) tour of several cheesemaking facilities.

We went from the simplest of cheesemaking at the Amish Salemville Cheese Co-Op to the latest state-of-the-art facilities of BelGioioso and Roth-Kase to the sustainable dairy farmers/cheesemakers of Crave Brothers. We visited with Kerry Hennings, of Henning's Wisconsin Cheese, a Wisconsin Licensed Master Cheesemaker and many cheese reps at a cheese trade show sponsored by the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. We were treated to a gourmet-pizza lunch at Sartori Foods; in fact, every place we stopped, we were spoiled.

I learned a lot, including some great bits of trivia and thought I would share them with you:

Trivia: The largest mammoth cheddar wheel ever made by Henning’s Wisconsin Cheese: 12,000 pounds – and they made two of them for a grocery store chain in Texas.

Trivia: Milk is delivered daily to Sartori Foods from the 200+ farmers, all within 50miles of the cheesemaking plant. That milk is being made into cheese within 3 hours of its arrival.

Trivia: Mozzarella packed in water has a shelf life of about 30 days while the cryovac version has a shelf life of 60 days.

Trivia: It takes between 10 and 13 pounds of milk to make 1 pound of cheese. The rest is water and whey, which is recycled and used or sold.

Trivia: BelGioioso wraps their Gorgonzola in foil and then in cellophane with tiny holes so that the cheese can continue to breathe. Cryovac wrap causes the cheese to become wet; the holes in the cellophane prevent that, making for a better product.

Trivia: The average size herd that provides milk to the Salemville Co-Op: 12 cows.

Trivia: The difference between blue cheese and gorgonzola is 30 days. Blue is aged 60 days and gorgonzola is aged 90 days (or more).

Trivia: 100 Pounds of cow milk fetches $12.00 these days… and the price of cow milk is set on the Chicago Commodity Exchange… 100 pounds of goat milk fetches $45.oo these days… 100 pounds of sheep milk fetches $95.00.

Trivia: Due to the outstanding treatment of their cows at the Crave Brothers Farm, the milk yield per cow is about 30K pounds of milk per yield, while the national average is 20K.

Trivia: The average size dairy herd in Wisconsin is 160 cows.

Dazzle your friends with your Wisconsin Cheese trivia… (MW)