Small Cheese Makers Invest in a Stinky Science

There’s no sign announcing that you’ve arrived at Jasper Hill Farm, a creamery in the Northeast Kingdom, as Vermonters call that end of their state, but you can’t miss it. By LARISSA ZIMBEROFF
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The main barn is painted midnight blue with a giant cheese moon and cows floating happily in space. Blasted into the hillside is a concrete bunker with seven cheese caves radiating from a central core.

There’s one other surprising detail: a modern two-room laboratory filled with microbiology equipment and staffed with scientists.

Why does a small, rural creamery invest in technology for what has long been a low-tech product? Because it doesn’t have 500 years to learn what its European counterparts already know: the biological intricacies of how to make the best cheese in a particular place. And because the same diversity of microbial cultures is not available in North America.

“Building a lab might seem extravagant or of questionable value, but what we get as a business over two, three, four generations — it’s a no-brainer,” said Mateo Kehler, who owns the farm with his brother, Andy.

The making of cheese depends on the contribution of myriad microbial actors. Both yeast and bacteria are components of the starter cultures that help turn milk into solids, and those solids into cheeses with distinctive aromas, flavors and textures that are hard to resist. The interplay of these species, while understood in a basic sense, is now receiving renewed scientific scrutiny and appreciation in the United States.

Unlike their peers in Europe, who benefit from centuries of tradition and from government support for research, American farmstead cheese makers have typically gone it alone. Starter cultures are a particularly vexing ingredient. The only three domestic suppliers, including DuPont and Cargill, are multinational corporations better known for chemicals, which has limited the number of available cultures and caused discomfort in a field that strives for individuality.

But now several small cheese producers are working with scientists to develop their own starters and use microbiology to create better cheeses.

Murray’s Cheese is working with Rockefeller University to learn more about the microflora in its cheese caves in Long Island City, Queens. Uplands Cheese Company is working with the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin to create a new soft cheese, its first in seven years.

But perhaps none have taken on cheese science as rigorously as Jasper Hill. Its laboratory, opened in 2013, has become a hub for other cheese makers seeking help and insight.

When the Kehler brothers began making cheese in 2003, their aim was to invigorate the local dairy industry, which was, and still is, struggling. They started on their path to applied science in 2010, when Rachel Dutton, a Harvard scientist, decided to use cheese as a model to research how small microbial communities interact; she focused on the composition of cheese rinds.

Her first contact in the cheese business was Mateo Kehler, who taught her to make cheese and then helped her reach out to more than 100 other producers for samples. The response was overwhelming. “I don’t think she realized how excited the artisan cheese industry was going to be,” Mr. Kehler said.

In 2014, Dr. Dutton published her findings in the journal Cell. Working with Benjamin Wolfe, a postdoctoral researcher, she reported that the environment (cows, cheese caves, pastures) and methods (washing, salting, managing acidity) were as important to the development of cheese rinds, if not more so, than the ingredients.

This was a revelation. With this new scientific proof in hand, the Kehlers stopped adding starter cultures to Winnimere, one of their most popular raw-milk cheeses. “What we were adding wasn’t growing, and when we stopped adding that, the cheese ripened more gracefully and deliciously,” Mateo Kehler said.

Their pasteurized cheeses, though, still needed starters because pasteurization kills bacteria both good and bad for cheese. So they began making starter cultures from bacteria in their own milk supply.

Besides ending their reliance on big business, this has allowed the brothers to create a cheese that can come only from a singular place: Greensboro, Vt.

An on-site laboratory has its perks. In addition to having staff members who deeply understand microbiology, Jasper Hill Farm has become a magnet for researchers near and far. Now working there are an engineering intern from Brittany, France; a local microbiologist; and Panos C. Lekkas, a food microbiologist who has investigated the best ways to feed, tend and milk a cow for cheese production.

Dr. Lekkas, who was hired in November to work full time at Jasper Hill, collaborates with Dr. Dutton, now at the University of California, San Diego, and with Dr. Wolfe, who leads a microbiology laboratory at Tufts University.

In addition to helping improve food safety procedures at the 85-person Jasper Hill Farm, Dr. Lekkas is overseeing the development of a new cheese — a French Camembert style that for now the team is calling Wild Moses.

Dr. Lekkas was told that it takes eight months to bring a new cheese to market. “Mateo wants me to do it in three,” he said. With science comes speed.

In order to make a soft pasteurized cheese that does not rely on corporate additives, the scientists sampled 300 promising strains of yeast and bacteria, all pulled from milk from Jasper Hill’s own 250 cows.

What makes a homegrown starter promising? Sometimes it’s the color of the microbes in a petri dish, but smell, too, can be telling. The group sniffed the samples and noted any pleasing aromas: Play-Doh, Concord grapes, tomato juice, clams, Kraft American Singles. Dr. Wolfe’s lab ran a full genomic sequencing on the 15 top contenders, which will provide a blueprint for understanding how these strains are related to, or differ from, other cultures in the cheese world.

Making funky cheese is tricky, even for scientists. “There are subtle variations in flavor and aroma that you perceive in cheese,” Dr. Wolfe said. “We want to understand what drives that variation.” With Dr. Wolfe’s genomic data, the team can track the microbes through the entire cheese-making process.

In November, the first batch of cheese was produced using five strains from the original 15 parent cultures — two yeast-based and three bacterial. New batches are being made every two weeks using different combinations, and every 10 days, each will be tasted to see whether it is on target for the “deliciousness factor,” Jasper Hill’s zero-to-10 grading system.

Seven or above is pretty good. Eight is out of this world. Tens are likely to be bestowed only outside the farm: Jasper Hill’s Harbison cheese recently took Super Gold at the World Cheese Awards in Spain.

“I will be happy with a seven,” Dr. Lekkas said.

Mirá También

Así lo expresó Domingo Possetto, secretario de la seccional Rafaela, quien además, afirmó que a los productores «habitualmente los ignoran los gobiernos». Además, reconoció la labor de los empresarios de las firmas locales y aseguró que están «esperanzados» con la negociación entre SanCor y Adecoagro.

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