cheese making: winter milk (wow)

Late fall is cheese making season for us, the second half of a provisioning that starts in early summer. In June milk production is high and we make cheese to store a part of this plenty. Then summer comes, the forage is more lignous, the calves get big, and cheese making is no longer the order of the day.

In November/December, as the cows finish the last pass over the summer pastures before going onto stockpile, we make cheese again -- not because production is high at this time (it's only moderate), but because with calves largely weaned, and more time indoors, cheesemaking is once more possible.

The characters of these cheeses will differ seasonally, with variations in forage, ambient airborne biology, etc. Summer milk has a higher water content; winter milk is more nutrient dense.

How much more was born in on us yesterday when we unhooped a new cheese.

Generally you can calculate cheese size by the volume of milk used to make it: a gallon of milk equals a pound of cheese, or somewhat less. Or so we have always read/heard/found in general experience.

This cheese, starting life as five generous gallons of cow's milk, weighs eight and a half pounds. Wow. That's some nutrient dense milk. And a high fat content to boot.

We seldom weigh cheeses (it doesn't make them any heavier), but we'll be watching over the next few weeks to see if all our early winter cheeses are similarly massive.

Nature is so generous.