Why Milk Wants to Transform with Robyn Jackson

Welcome back to Everyday Ancestral. I'm your host, James Barry. Robin Jackson is a mom to 3 children, a rancher's wife, a homesteader, and a milkmaid. She's been milking a cow and making cheese in her kitchen since 2014, teaching others through her business, Cheese from Scratch, since 2021. So since launching her business, Robin has taught thousands of students and is passionate about not only teaching the skill of cheesemaking, but educating people about cheese as a traditional form of fermentation and preservation of milk.

Incredible.

way to control your ingredients. Thank you again and enjoy this episode with Robin Jackson. Robin, it is such a pleasure to talk to you. I know we met briefly at the Modern Homesteading Conference, but I've never actually gotten to work with you with your cheese. So this is a pleasure. Thank you for taking the time.

Awesome. Thank you for having me.

Um, so I want to understand, I, I learned on the internet that Brie and Colby are your favorite cheeses to make. So what is it about it that make those your favorite? Um, texture? Is it flavor? Because honestly, I'm, I'll be, I want to be straight with everyone listening and you specifically. I'm not a cheese guy. Like, I actually don't crave cheese. I'm not a, I don't gravitate toward it, but I'm fascinated that so many people do. And I'm hoping that I leave this, this interview, learning a little bit more about what it is that is so attractive to everyone other than, of course, the fat and the texture and all that. But the flavor is so unique for so many different cheeses. And yeah, so I'll let you talk now.

I wonder if you just haven't found the right cheese yet.

Oh, well, that's a really good point, actually.

Yeah, maybe. Maybe I'm not here.

I mean, I do like harder cheeses and I like Manchego. So I guess I'm Yeah, I guess if I dig a little deeper, there are some cheeses I like, Parmesan, but I tend to gravitate towards harder cheeses. So I guess that goes back to the question of what is it about Brie and Colby that make those your favorite cheeses?

So they're kind of, um, they're such different cheeses, which is cool. But, um, Colby is definitely, I love making it because it's the cheese that my family loves. So my husband, uh, Zach is originally from Wisconsin. And so he loves Colby cheese. He loves mozzarella string cheese. He loves all those kind of Like just traditional Wisconsin cheese state cheeses. And then my kids also just really love Colby. They like that it's kind of mild and it sort of tastes like the cheese that you get from the grocery store. Just like, I don't want to compare it to Kraft, but you know what, like it tastes like something that they would just, you would just buy at the grocery store and it tastes normal to them. So they like that. And then I love making brie. So brie is like my favorite cheese ever to make. It's so fun to make. And then I love eating it myself. It's my favorite cheese probably to eat.

And when you think about cheeses and what you've found from just your hours working with cheese, and then of course you're teaching so many people, what do you think really, what do you think is the kind of attracting point? What's the linchpin around cheese for people? Do you think, do you find it's texture?

I think it's probably, yeah, texture, the fat. It just is like, So satiating to your body. Like when you have a piece of cheese, it just is like, hmm, I needed that. That was good. And so I think that's probably it for me as like a homesteader or rancher kind of thing. It's a way to preserve my milk. So I really love it in that sense that it's a way that I can take something that's highly perishable and turn it into something that is going to be shelf stable almost, or not quite shelf stable, but Cooled room stable, basically, um, and is going to last me for years.

Yeah, I think that's really the key, right? I mean, this is a preservation technique. Um, you're getting really good fat, as you mentioned, you're getting good protein. Um, and then of course, lots of flavor. Um, but you began cheesemaking in what, like 2014? Is that right?

Yeah, 2014. Yeah. 10, 10 years ago.

10 years. Wow. Okay. So what is it that brought you? What, what, where, what were you doing before? And then what, what brought you to cheesemaking?

Um, so, um, Zach, my husband and I, we've had our cattle ranch for 12 years now, I guess it is. And so, as I said before, my husband is originally from Wisconsin. We live in Canada now. And so he moved with his family to Canada. I am from Canada and we met and we married and, um, we both are, both of our families had cattle ranches. So it was kind of just a natural We wanted to be cattle ranchers too, so we bought a cattle ranch. But ever since I met Zach, he's always wanted to have a dairy cow again. And he just always talked about it. And I never grew up with a dairy cow. I didn't know why he was so excited about them. But then one day he just brought one home and he's like, can you make me some cheese? And at that point, I had been growing a garden and doing a little bit of fermenting and stuff like that. So it wasn't like This preposterous idea. So I was kind of excited to do it. And I just started turning our milk into cheese from that cow and the kind of the rest is history.

Well, now what, what was, I mean, you had never made cheese before, right? So what, what's the learning curve? Like, what was your resource for learning and, and how did it grow from there? I mean, did you like it enough to say, ooh, this is fun, let me keep exploring? Or was it more just like, Oh, I want to make my husband happy. He loves this. I'm, I'm going to find my way, you know?

I think kind of like a little bit, like, um, a little bit of both, a little bit of both. So I had already made, been making yogurt from store-bought milk. So I was already really interested in food preservation and, um, making more things from scratch and stuff. So that, um, that kind of got me excited about it. I had a book that I, um, just like read through. It was 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes by Deborah Amaran-Boys. Who's also Canadian, actually. So I had that book and I just read through it. It was like my Bible for cheesemaking. And there was a lot of trial and error. So I would say the learning curve was very, very steep, but it was also very exciting because even though it was steep and I had a lot of failures, I also had some successes along the way early on. And so that kind of just drove me to just keep learning and keep wanting to improve. Um, I would say.

That's lovely. Um, and then that you eventually founded Cheese From Scratch, um, which is your educational platform. How long did it take for you to take this interest and turn it into really like a career, right? I mean, yeah.

Yeah. Um, so that was about 3 years. I think it was 3 years ago that I started Cheese From Scratch. So I'd been making cheese for about 7 years. At that point, and I was kind of looking for a way that I could stay home more on the ranch. I was working in town full-time at that point. So I was looking for a way that I could stay home on the ranch, be with my kids more. And so I was like, I've got this really cool hobby of cheesemaking. Lots of people are asking me, like, how is cheese made? Can you teach me kind of thing? So I decided to just kind of dive into it and, yeah, start teaching other people online how to make cheese. And yeah, Cheese From Scratch kind of took off. I think it was a good time. because there was a lot of people just looking to stay home more, make their own food from scratch more, just like post-COVID basically. So I think it was a good time to kind of start a business like that, but it's been really fun. You know, I've taught a lot of people how to make cheese, and it's so exciting to see that people are starting to enjoy this really age-old skill of cheesemaking.

Yeah, I mean, and I've heard so many good things about your specific way of teaching. Now you're, A bit unique though, right? In how you teach, because don't you, don't you emphasize traditional cheesemaking?

Yeah, I really, I'm all, I'm a, um, learner in traditional cheesemaking myself right now. A lot of people are learning kind of at the same level as I am for traditional cheesemaking, just because it's almost been lost. Like in the last 100 years, cheesemaking has changed so drastically. Like it's almost, Unrecognizable to how it was, how cheese has been made for thousands of years. The last 100 years have just changed it all. So we're trying to get back to that, how cheese was made before, you know, pasteurization and sterilization and freeze-dried cultures that you're buying from the cheese supply store. So we're trying to relearn things that we've kind of forgotten almost. So I would say I'm definitely a learner in that area, just like everybody else, but it's an exciting sort of journey that we're all on. Trying to sort of reclaim natural cheesemaking.

Well, let's, so let's talk about that. So, um, yeah, so the pasteurization of milk, I mean, how do you know the history of, like, how did that affect cheesemaking and what had to change or did anything?

Yeah, I think, um, pasteurization just sort of, um, it sort of almost set like a precedent for like sterilization and Everything like that. It changed everything is what the answer to that is. So I know a little, like I know enough of the history of pasteurization. So it kind of, at the time when pasteurization came in, it was a good solution to a problem that was happening. You know, a lot of people were getting sick from industrialized milk. So it was, you know, Industrial Revolution, everything had changed in the way that we were raising our animals and the way that milk was being transported. And so pasteurization was sort of like this band-aid solution that came in and, okay, if we heat our milk up to a high temperature, it's going to kill all of the bacterias and people aren't going to get sick. Because in milk there that is not handled appropriately, there is good bacterias, but there is also bad bacterias. And some of these bad bacterias were making people sick. And so pasteurization was that band-aid solution that fixed it and made it so that— Um, that people weren't going to basically die. But then with that, um, came all sorts of other things where now that you have changed the basic structure of milk, now you have to do different things in your cheesemaking to make it successful. And so it was sort of like this thing that just like domino affected everything in the cheesemaking world.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting too, because in many ways pasteurization just kind of gave permission for, for really poor, humane, inhumane, you know, poor, uh, dairy cow, I don't know, conditions or, or raising, um, of dairy cows and, and dealing with milk, right? I mean, it's, it's almost like, here, we have this technique, so don't, doesn't matter as much about all the other things because we'll just kill whatever you create or co-create.

Yeah, exactly. Like, there's an acceptable amount when you, um, when milk is picked up from the dairy farm, there's an acceptable amount of somatic cell count that is in that milk. It's acceptable for that milk to be dirty because, or contaminated, or have these bad bacterias in it because you're just going to pasteurize it and kill it off anyways. So yeah, it's given permission for bad milk handling practices, bad animal husbandry, the breeding of animals to be used just for production rather than, you know, just like healing the land and looking after the animals. So yeah, that's my opinion.

Right. I mean, and you work with both raw and, um, store-bought milk. So what, what do you see? Like, is it, what's the difference in the cheesemaking? Are you, are you sort of restricted on what cheeses you can use or make with You know, raw versus store-bought milk. Um, maybe just talk about your experience with both in terms of cheesemaking.

Yeah. Um, so I would consider myself mostly a raw milk cheesemaker because I have dairy animals on my farm. You know, that's my kind of expertise. I'm very, uh, um, like pro raw milk, pro having your own fresh dairy source, pro being able to kind of access that. But I know that that's not That's not going to be something that everybody can access just because the state of how everything is. So I do teach pasteurized milk as well. Pasteurized milk can be turned into cheese, but there's different things that you have to do to get that milk to turn into cheese. So just as an example, raw milk, it comes out of a cow's udder, and it's perfectly designed to be turned into cheese. That little calf that is going to drink that milk, relies on this ability of milk to turn to cheese to actually be able to survive. So that milk comes out of the udder, it's nice and warm, it goes into the little calf's stomach where it's also warm, it's acidic in there, there are enzymes, we know these enzymes called rennet, and all of these things kind of combine to cause that milk to go from its liquid form to its solid form or its cheese form. And so when we're making cheese with raw milk or fresh raw milk, that's almost straight from the udder, We are able to sort of mimic this natural process, and that helps us to make better cheese. Whereas if you are making cheese from pasteurized milk that's at the grocery store, not only is that milk cooled, so you have to warm it back up to the correct temperature that it kind of comes out of the udder. And during the pasteurization process, the composition of that milk has been damaged. So there's not, you know, these natural, good beneficial bacterias in it. There's The mineral components of it has been damaged. So you have to add something back in called calcium chloride to make that milk actually coagulate. So all these things are not all these things. A few of these things have to be done when you are dealing with pasteurized milk, where it's just so much easier if you're dealing with raw milk, fresh raw milk, I should say.

Oh man, that's so interesting. And so when you're working with the raw milk, you, you, You're literally taking the warm milk and making cheese straight away.

Yeah, you're just like, I bring it in from the barn, strain it so that it's nice and clean. There's no barn debris or anything and put it into the cheese pot. If I have time that day, you know, I'm not opposed to putting into the fridge, but I try not to make cheese with milk that is older than, you know, 2 to 3 days because that's just, you're going to have more problems with that. So I am kind of like, As much as I'm pro raw milk, I'm pro fresh raw milk. And if you don't have access to that fresh raw milk, then you should probably be considering dealing with pasteurized milk, but it should be like low temperature pasteurization. It shouldn't be ultra pasteurized. So ultra pasteurized milk cannot be turned into cheese, which is interesting and also concerning.

Wait, oh wait, say that again. The, the, the high temperature milk cannot?

Yeah. So ultra pasteurized milk, which a lot of milk actually I've found in the States is ultra pasteurized. Um, in Canada, not so much. Most of it's just low temperature pasteurization, but, um, hot ultra pasteurized milk can't be turned into cheese. So.

That's so interesting because I, I mean, I think you're right. I think in the U.S., I've never seen low temp. I mean, it's very rare. Maybe I have once or twice, but it's usually Ultra pasteurized.

Yeah, that's, it's concerning because that won't turn to cheese. And so if you are in the States or you're in an area where raw milk's not legal, and you're having to rely on the grocery stores, you know, you still, it's beneficial to make those connections in your community. Even if you're having to buy pasteurized milk from small farms around you, at least that's probably going to be low temperature pasteurized. If milk can still cream line, that's also a good indication that it's a little bit less processed. So milk that can still cream line. So if you don't, if you're listening to this and you don't really know what real milk is, so real milk, the cream rises to the top of raw cow's milk and you are able to kind of scoop it off and make your butter or whatever. So if you are able to find cream line milk, it's probably going to be less processed. It hasn't gone through the homogenization process.

That's a really great tip. And so what can you do with ultra pasteurized milk? Can you make yogurt? I mean, is there anything you can do with it?

Yeah, I actually am, I'm 98% sure you can make yogurt. I've never dealt with it. I've never used it before. But yeah, I just know that you can't get it to coagulate with that enzyme rennet that I talked about. So rennet is something that we add during the cheesemaking process to cause quick coagulation. And ultra pasteurized, even if you add that calcium chloride that I talked about, it won't coagulate.

Have you messed around with vegetable rennet versus animal? And if so, any difference in your opinion?

I prefer animal rennet just because I am trying to mimic that natural process in my cheesemaking. The more natural I can go, basically, the better my cheeses are. Vegetable rennet does make good cheese, but it's causes bitterness in cheeses that are aged over 4 months, so it's better for fresh cheeses. So there's basically a couple different types of rennet that you can get. You can get animal rennet, which is harvested from young animals. So usually they're about 2 weeks when they're harvested. So that comes with its own sort of ethical things for people. And then vegetable rennet is usually coming from figs and cardoons and thistle, I think, are some of the sources of that. And So it's like maybe it feels a little bit more ethical, but you also need to harvest a lot more of those vegetables to be able to make a small amount of rennet, whereas an animal has enough rennet in its stomach to turn all of its mother's milk into cheese throughout her entire lactation. So there's a lot more rennet actually coming from those animal stomachs. And then you also have rennet that is made in labs. So it's called FCP rennet, which is—

FCP.

It's not a genetically modified organism itself, but it's created using a genetically modified process.

And is it, so it's neither animal nor vegetable? I mean, what is it?

It's, so it's actually exactly, if you looked under a microscope, it looks exactly like the animal rennet. So it's called an enzyme called chymosin. So that's The enzyme that is in the lining of young calves' stomachs. But this chymosin is produced, I believe, using like a bacteria or a fungus. So they genetically modify that organism to produce this enzyme, and then they kill that organism off, and then they're left with this enzyme. So it isn't really listed as a genetically modified product, but a genetically modified organism, because an enzyme can't be an organism. But it is created using a genetically modified process.

And did you say you have worked with it or you have not?

I haven't, but it apparently does the exact same thing as animal rennet. So if that's what you have available to you, it does, it doesn't cause bitterness in cheeses that are aged over the 4 months. People that are vegetarian, I believe, can use it because it's not actually an animal product. So, um, Yeah. So those are kind of the benefits of it, I guess. And it does do the exact same thing as the animal version.

Can you talk a little bit about the aging? Uh, I mean, just assuming, you know, no one knows anything, like, can you just talk about why and, and how the aging affects the cheese? Because you already are mentioning that it, it sounds like the longer it's aged, the less bitter it is. Is that, is that accurate?

Um, so just for vegetable rennet.

Oh, okay.

It can cause bitterness in cheeses that are aged over 4 months, so they say. I don't usually use vegetable rennet that much, but that's like kind of a common knowledge thing in the cheesemaking world that that does cause that. So different cheeses are going to age in different ways, and you're going to use different techniques to age different cheeses. And kind of it all starts in the cheese pot. It starts at the very beginning of your cheesemaking. Not only with what culture, bacterial culture. So just like if you're sort of making any other fermented product, you're adding a bacterial culture into your milk. So different cultures are going to help you make different cheeses or not. That's a whole nother conversation.

And then also— That's my next question. So we'll get there.

All right. So that's good. And then the way that you handle your milk in the cheese pot. So How much moisture you're releasing, how much you're allowing it to ferment, what heats you're bringing it to. All those things are going to define aging, and then the actual aging process itself. And there is so, it's such a vast, it's such a vast conversation basically about all the different ways that you can age cheese. And maybe you can make one cheese the exact same as you make another cheese, but you can age it differently. It will become an entirely different cheese. Um, so yeah, just so much to it really.

So let's, let's talk about, so the bacterial, the bacteria used, and then also obviously it's tied to the environment as well, right? So what, what are the different bacterias? Where, where do they come from? I know obviously some are coming from the air. Um, but maybe just talk about that process and then in turn, The environment that then you're allowing the cheese to cure or curd, how does that affect the product? Yeah.

So, just like with any other, like cheesemaking is really a lot like other fermenting fermentation methods. So same thing, if you are using vegetable fermentation, you're relying on a type of bacteria called lactic bacteria. So that's this huge head category. of bacterias that like to feed on sugar. So lactic bacterias were actually named for their love of milk because lactic bacterias live in raw milk and they like to feed on the sugar, which is the lactose in the milk. And as they feed on that sugar, they ferment it into lactic acid and cause that fermentation. So that's sort of the first process of fermentation in cheesemaking. And there is Multiple different stages of fermentation, but all cheeses are starting with this addition of lactic bacteria, and it's fermenting and acidifying the milk. So there's different types of lactic bacteria. You can get warm-loving ones that are referred to as thermophilic, and so they're going to be used for cheeses where you're cooking the curds to a higher heat. And then there's the mesophilic ones, which are where you're cooking the curds to a lower heat. Or you can, just like with a sourdough starter where you can bake all sorts of different types of bread with one starter, you can make your own cheesemaking starter. I refer to it, or a lot of people refer to it as clabber culture. So it's a raw milk starter culture and it harnesses the power of the raw milk. So instead of adding a freeze-dried starter culture that you're going to buy in the store, that's just one specific strain. These homemade cultures, they have a whole ecology of different bacterias within them. And these bacterias, you can kind of isolate the ones that you want depending on your cheesemaking technique. So if you want those thermophilic bacterias, you're going to be heating your milk to a higher heat during the cheesemaking process, and that's going to encourage those ones to thrive. Whereas if you want your mesophilic, the lower temperature ones, you're going to be heating it to a lower heat kind of thing. So that's something that is a little bit more advanced, but it's super exciting because we haven't really been talking about this for very long. There's this guy named David Asher. He's written a couple books now. And so he's sort of spearheading all of this natural cheesemaking thing. And we're all sort of just learning from him, but I've been making clabriculture for a couple of years now. And it was almost mind-blowing because before that I was using that freeze-dried cultures and I just kind of was like, oh, you could not make your own starter cultures at home. Um, but like, yeah, I've been having really, really good results using this claviculture, which is very exciting.

That is really exciting. So, so really it's truly like, uh, a homemade cheese. Like every, every aspect of it is coming from your, your farm in your case.

Yeah, exactly.

Other than the rennet, you don't have to outsource anything. What was that last thing you just said?

Just, uh, just other than the rennet, everything else is coming from You know, coming from our own farm.

Yeah, that's incredible. Um, okay. So before we get into the actual making of the cheese, I imagine there's probably some people listening that are like never going to make cheese. So can we just support them in what should they be looking for when they go to the grocery store? You know, what, what, what is, and let's set the criteria as most nutritious. Um, Maybe most flavorful, uh, and I know that's going to vary hugely, but maybe just pick some of your favorites of, and what criteria people should be looking for. Should it be, you know, aged a certain, a minimum of a certain amount of months, you know, and anything that's going to help the kind of the store buyer, uh, the cheese store buyer.

Yeah, I think, um, like primary first thing on my list would be local. You know, local, that's going to be made, well, it's probably made using freeze-dried bacterias, but it's going to, you know, be supporting your community. If it is made with natural cultures, which I don't think there is any cheesemaking plants in North America at this moment that are making, using cheesemaking cultures, but are natural cheesemaking cultures, but you know, it would have the microbes from your community, your area. So that's kind of my first on the list is local. My second on the list is because I am a mom to 3 kids is something that your kids are going to eat. So it's a lot, a big transition for families to kind of move away from those big processed brand cheeses. So kind of going to like—

The ones that you can't really call cheese, those ones?

Yeah, exactly. The ones where you, so when you look on a cheesemaking, actually, this is what you should do. When you look on a cheesemaking or on the ingredient list of your cheese, you want there to be 4 ingredients. If there's more than 4 ingredients, other than maybe if there's like spices or anything like that, You don't want to buy it. So the 4 ingredients that you are looking for on your cheesemaking label is your milk, your bacterial culture, your rennet, and your salt. So those are the only 4 ingredients that need to be in cheese. Anything else is just extra or has been put there unnaturally. So rennet sometimes, yeah, it will probably be listed as rennet or it'll be listed as enzymes, um, and bacteria would be listed as lactic bacteria, live bacteria, probiotic, something like that.

Do you think organic, conventional, do you, do you, do you focus on those when someone's buying cheese? Or do you think that the process, with the process, it doesn't matter?

I think it does matter. I think that, yeah, um, you know, cows that are fed on grass are, well, That's another conversation. But cows that are raised in the way that you want to buy your milk, for example, are going to give you better, more nutritious cheese, I should say. So yeah, the grass-fed cow, it's a whole thing. But milk cows, I don't 100% believe that we have bred them to a point where they actually can't sustain their health on grass alone. So as long as they're healthy grass-fed cows, then I— Promote grass-fed cheese.

And then from there, what, organic?

And then, yeah, organic, you know, any ways that you're kind of looking to buy your regular foods anyways are good practices to bring in there. But yeah, I would say the big one is local, then making sure it only has those 4 ingredients, making sure you pick out one that your family loves. And yeah.

And for anyone that's sensitive to lactose, is Is aged cheese going to have less of it? Is there a truth to that, that, you know, the more aged the cheese or the harder the cheese, the more possibility they won't have issue?

Yeah, absolutely. So the lactic bacterias that we talked about, they feed on the lactose and they ferment it into lactic acid. So if a cheese is aged longer, for example, a Parmesan, there's probably very little lactose actually in it. So if you are truly lactose intolerant, You can probably consume those cheeses.

And what would, so, so Parmesan is one. What's some others that would be an example?

Parmesan, any like long-aged cheddar, Colby. What other ones?

Is there like a specific age with the cheddar like that, that it should be? Do you, do you happen to know that?

I don't know exactly, but I would say any cheese that was aged probably over like 3 months. Honestly, by the time that they get to where they're being wrapped and stored, there's very little lactose left into those cheese anyways. But if you really are that, I don't know if you're truly, truly lactose intolerant or lactose allergy, you shouldn't consume cheese, but because there will be traces of lactose in there. But if you're just intolerant of it, probably, you know, you could probably even consume fresher aged cheeses.

You have been working with— you said making cheese now for 10 years. Have— has there ever been, like, a kind of concern or fear that, what if I become lactose intolerant, you know, from just consuming it so much? Because, you know, there is kind of, like, a possibility when someone does something so much that they can become sensitive to it. Has that been a fear or has that ever come up for you or your family?

I don't think it's ever been a fear that I've thought about too much. I actually think that a lot of people that presume that they're lactose intolerant, this is again just my opinion, but I think a lot of people that presume that they're lactose intolerant might actually be sensitive to the proteins in milk. So there's different proteins that cows can have in there, or different types of proteins that cows can have in their milk. So I think a lot of times that's maybe where that's kind of stemming from. I feel like if you're fermenting milk, it's just way more easily to— easier to digest. And so I try— I actually don't drink a lot of just raw milk that is fresh. Most of the dairy products that I'm consuming have been fermented, and I feel like that really helps with Um, yeah, I haven't ever worried about it, but I think that really helps with digestion.

Yeah, in a sense, it's almost like you're saying, like, if you just kind of properly prepare it, you know, you use, you know, the cleanest and most natural ingredients that, you know, life kind of will protect you in a sense. Is that kind of your sense?

Yeah, exactly. And it's just making it so much more, it's like predigesting it a little bit for your body. Or a lot, but it's pre-digesting it for your body so that it's more bioavailable for you and that you can actually take those nutrients and use them.

Okay. So let's just say now someone's like, okay, I really, I'm ready. I want to, I want to make my first, you know, fermented or cheese dairy product. Where should they start? Should they start with yogurt? And what's your thought on that?

Yeah, I think yogurt is a great starting point. Kefir is also a really great starting point. If you have access to fresh raw milk, that clabber that I talked about is also probably my number one starting point. If you have a dairy animal, you have to be keeping a clabber culture because it's such an amazing product. It's a culture, but it's also a dairy product in itself. We eat a lot of clabber in our house. So probably if you don't have a dairy animal or anything though, If you can get access to some kefir grains, they're going to be a really easy dairy product for you to kind of keep just like a sourdough starter, feeding every day, getting this product every day that you're able to consume. And if you can't get your hands on any kefir grains, that yogurt is also a really great starting point.

Can we actually kind of give people a basic recipe for, you choose either yogurt or clabber?

Yeah, I'll give a recipe for yogurt because it's probably just kind of the one that is most available to most people. But basically what you're doing when you make yogurt is you're pasteurizing the milk, which seems funny, but don't worry, we're going to add bacteria back into it. So you heat it up to a high temperature, so usually about 190 degrees Fahrenheit, and this pasteurizes out any of the raw milk bacterias, or if it's already pasteurized milk, it Pasteurizes out any other bacterias that have environmentally been introduced. And it also changes the composition of the milk so that you're going to get a creamier texture. So it's also important for that creamy texture of yogurt to heat up to that high temperature. And then what you're going to do is you're going to lower the temperature back down to a good fermenting temperature. So usually this is about 110 degrees for yogurt culture because it's Like I said before, that thermophilic, warm-loving bacteria. So you're going to cool it down to 110, then you're going to add in your starter culture. And so if you don't have any yogurt culture, you can just use yogurt from the grocery store. Just make sure that it has live bacterias in it. So it hasn't been pasteurized after the making of it, because it's crazy. Sometimes yogurt is made commercially and then they pasteurize the yogurt out, basically kill all the good stuff. So just plain yogurt from the grocery store that still has live bacterias in it. You can add that in. You're going to add a quarter cup of yogurt in per gallon of milk used. And then you're going to just stir it up and let it sit in a warm place for about 8 hours. And then it should be nice, beautifully thick yogurt.

And you're really, you're only putting it in the refrigerator when it's Kind of at the flavor or the culture that you want it to be, right? So in many ways, I know, like, for example, eggs don't always have to be kept in, particularly if you're getting them from a fresh farm, they don't have to be kept in the refrigerator. Is that true with some cheeses as well?

To a point. So cheesemaking is the decomposition of milk. So it's like fancy composting. So Yes, maybe your milk would, or your cheeses that you're making would be safe to consume even though you left them at room temperature. But they're going to continue to evolve. They're going to continue to ferment. And because they're at a warmer temperature, that might not be a desirable ferment. It might not taste good. So cooler temperatures are good for cheeses to be stored in, just not as cool as your regular refrigerator. So fresh dairy products like yogurt and stuff, they can be stored in your regular refrigerator. In fact, I recommend it. But for like actual cheeses, usually they're stored between about 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit. So a lot of people store them in like their cellars or their attics. I have a special refrigerator that I have a thermostat hooked up to that I just keep it at that temperature. But—

Oh, similar to how people, you know, keep wine or something like that.

Yeah, exactly. Wine fridges. Like lots of people use wine fridges as cheese caves.

All right. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Now you've taught a lot of people how to make cheese. Do you find that there, there is a specific mindset that helps for someone who, for them to enjoy making cheese, for example?

Oh, sorry. I think just not overcomplicating it. I think that, um, it's very easy to go into it. And one, you don't know anything, and then there's all these new things that you're learning. And so you're, as you learn, you just, it's really easy to become overwhelmed. So what I recommend people do is don't research too much before you dive in. Just order your ingredients, basically pick one recipe and make that recipe and then make it over and over and over again until it feels comfortable before you start branching out and trying to do too many different things. I think that is sort of the best mindset to get in because It is so easy to overwhelm yourself. And cheesemaking isn't just the, especially aged cheesemaking is not just the making part. It's also the aging part. And so sure, you learn how to make this cheese, but then now you have to learn how to age it. And so it just helps so much if you just do one cheese and get really, really good at making it and then add, add in more cheeses after that.

What do you think the learning curve is? Like if someone's brand new to it, are we talking a month? Are we talking 6 months to actually start to feel like you, you know, not, not a master, but like that, okay, I got this.

You know, I feel like it depends what type of cheese you're trying to make. Um, and I feel like if you're just gonna, I recommend that you just start with some simple dairy processing, start with making like yogurt and you can become a master of yogurt in like 2, 3 batches. You know, it's, you might even feel like you're a master of making yogurt after the first batch because it really is just that easy. And so that's going to just give you some confidence to sort of go from there. And then if you just sort of pick one cheese, plug away at it, get good at it, you're going to kind of become a master of each cheese as you go along. And that's going to just, it's kind of going to propel your learning a lot, a lot quicker than trying to bounce around all sorts of different cheeses.

What's a good first cheese for someone to start? We mentioned yogurt for, for that yogurt or kefir, but what's a good first cheese?

Anything like a cream cheese or anything like that is really— so I kind of recommend, this is my roadmap. So make some yogurt, then make some cream cheese, and then maybe like some fresh cottage cheese or something like that. And then a really good sort of aged cheese to start with is feta, especially because you don't really need a lot of fancy equipment. You probably have everything in your kitchen that you already need to make feta. You just have to order. A few of the ingredients, but so that's a first good aged cheese to make would be feta.

Now you, you obviously focus on cow, but how does species affect the cheese or have you experienced other? I'm sure you've worked with goat as well, right?

Yeah, goat. I haven't done much of it, but I teach a lot of goat milk cheesemakers and also sheep milk cheesemakers. So sheep's milk, I wish I had a sheep. Sheep's milk is like It's amazing. It makes such good cheese. But anyways, so both or all ruminant species of animals, their milk can be turned into cheese. And you can make all of the same cheeses that I make with cow's milk, with goat's milk, or with sheep's milk. It's going to be basically the same process. The taste is going to be a little bit different. You can't take the goat out of the goat milk, and you can't take the sheep out of the sheep's milk. But those kind of nuances. They are, they're fine. They just, they, I would say, add to the cheese.

Have you ever worked with camel?

I've never worked with camel, but that would be cool. I think if I had like to have a wishlist for species, it'd be like camel, yak, donkey. I want to try making cheese with all those ones.

Rat? Have you ever worked with rats? No.

I don't think, I don't know. I don't have any desire to make rat milk.

Yeah, that would, that would be awkward. Um, it's funny I asked about the camel though, because I was, I was in some Amish country and in Pennsylvania, and I learned that they, they're, at least in that area near Gap, Pennsylvania, they have a camel farm. And, and it was really interesting. I was talking to a functional doctor who was dealing with a patient whose child was having lots of issues. Uh, and he recommended that they try camel milk. And they did, and the child's issues completely went away. Um, so I was like, wow, so there's some power in camel milk. What's that all about? But I, I didn't get much further than that, but it sounds like it's new to you as well.

Yeah, it is. Um, the only experience I kind of, or not experience, but, um, not, or I wouldn't even say knowledge. The only observation I had of someone using camel milk was, um, there's this guy, uh, Called Trevor, named Trevor. He, his account is the Milk Trekker on Instagram. He goes all over, like Tim, he goes all over the world looking for traditional cheesemaking. And so he was somewhere and they were, he was basically on the, they were, they were moving camels from someplace and yeah, had all this camel milk and stuff. And they had these little udder covers so that they could calf share with the camels. It was pretty cool.

Now, what role do you think cheese making plays in building resilience in our homesteading communities or just in general? Um, when you are supporting people and learning it, what, what do you find, um, particularly in today's world where, you know, resilience is maybe potentially a lost art, but it's also so important for us to be, uh, moving more towards because we need more of it, right?

Yeah, I think it's so important that we learn at least a little bit of the skill of cheesemaking on our homesteads or in our communities because we don't want it to become a lost art. We want to preserve all of these traditions that are, a lot of them have been lost already. And so we don't want to lose the ones that we're finding. So that's really important. And it's also really important to know how to preserve your milk. Milk was never meant to be refrigerated. Refrigeration is brand new in cheesemaking if you're looking at in terms of the thousands of years that cheese has been made. So we don't want to lose the skill of being able to preserve our milk and save it for seasons when we don't have milk, because there is seasonality to milk and to cheesemaking that we just don't recognize these days because you can always go to the grocery store and you can always get milk. Um, and so that's important to kind of, um, recognize as well.

Hmm. Now, if I'm just curious, like, uh, 'cause I think this is a concern. I mean, I, you know, I deal a lot with, uh, organ meats and supporting people in eating whole animal. I mean, cheesemaking, as you mentioned, is a lost art. I mean, in many ways. Um, and so there's a real effort and clearly you're leading, you know, one of the leaders of this effort to support people in Um, maintaining traditional cheesemaking skills to help spread the, um, knowledge of that. Is there, if, if we were to see cheesemaking disappear as a skill, but you had to preserve, you know, one part of that process for future generations, what do you think? That would be and why?

Hmm. So I think that we would never see cheesemaking completely disappear because milk wants to be turned to cheese. If you milk milk out of a cow and you let it sit out, it's going to clabber. It's going to turn into cheese. And so I think that kind of that knowledge that if we lean into natural cheesemaking, we lean into the natural properties of milk, that would be what I would want to preserve. You know, the idea that Okay, we've lost everything, but if we lean into what milk actually wants to do, we could learn in, if we, uh, we could learn what we need to know. Like we could, um, yeah, it would, it would, it would reteach us if we really leaned into the natural properties of milk.

I love that. I love that thought. Like that it's almost like the milk, it, it has a desired outcome and we just have to listen to it, you know? Yeah, exactly. We just have to. Be patient and listen to it and let it do its thing. That's really cool. Um, well, it's been so lovely, uh, talking with you. What, obviously you provide educational programs. Anyone that's interested in learning more, particularly if you want to dive into the Clabber, um, where would they find you and what should they, where should they start?

Yeah. Um, I have a website, so cheesefromscratch.com. Jump on my newsletter list. So I send out a newsletter every Monday. I've got a book coming out in spring 2025. It's being published through Homestead Living, so I'm very excited about that. So if you're on my newsletter list, you'll find out about that first. And then for the kind of day-to-day things, I'm on Instagram, I'm on YouTube, so you can find all sorts of kind of inspiration and tutorials and stuff on both of those channels.

And your in your handle, and we'll put that in the show notes. But if you just want to verbally say it, yeah, it's @andthencheese_from_scratch_.

So underscores.

Lots of underscores. What's the Milkmaid Society?

Yeah, so that's my monthly membership club. So it teaches all things cheese making and dairy processing and milk cows and dairy goats. And so it's information created by me, but also I've hired, I think I've got like, um, 30 people have contributed content to the Milkmaid Society. So it was kind of like the goal of it was to become like this ultimate resource for people, milkmaids or milkmen who wanted to, uh, come onto, uh, here and just have everything in one spot. And so that's, um, it's been going for 2 and a half years now and there's a ton of information on there.

That's excellent. That's a good point though. Do you find that cheesemaking skews more female or male?

No, I don't think so. I don't think so anymore. But I think that it maybe used to be sort of more of a male, or in the last 100 years, it was sort of more of a male-dominated area. But I think as more people are learning how to make cheese on their homesteads. It's kind of, it's for everyone.

Yeah, that's cool. Well, thank you again. Um, and we'll put all the links in the show notes. Um, and I hope that, I hope that this episode has inspired people to start making, whether it's yogurt, um, or kefir, making something from scratch, uh, because I really do believe that controlling our ingredients is the way to go and it And as you mentioned, it's, um, you know, what you find in the store, whether it's ultra-processed, ultra-pasteurized, has more than 4 ingredients. There's, there's lots of things that you just have to be aware of. And, and I love that you're really teaching people to kind of take, take that power back and, uh, just do it themselves. Um, thank you again. Uh, I'm, I'm, I'm looking forward to, uh, hopefully converting lots of people to starting to make their own cheese. Um, before we go though, where would people, like, let's just say if they do want to make kefir, are you teaching them how to make it themselves without outside source? Or where, where do you usually recommend people purchase the freeze-dried cultures if they are using anything?

Um, so any cheese supply website. Um, so in the United States, the best one probably is cheesemaking.com. It's, uh, New England Cheesemaking Company. And if you're in Canada, probably the best one would be Glengarry Cheesemaking. It's out of Ontario. You can also order from there if you're in the States too. So those are good places to sort of start and get your ingredients. As far as kefir, it's nice if you can find somebody in your area that is already making it. And so kefir is very cool. It's the grains, the grains are all probably derived from one grain that was Made like thousands and thousands of years ago. So if you can find somebody in your area that has kefir grains kind of going, then you can take some of their kefir grains and start your own. So that's kind of the cool thing about it.

Lastly, where do you recommend people get raw, or how should someone try to source raw milk if they are interested in going that direction?

So it definitely depends where you are located. If you're in the States, there is a cool map. It's on a website called realmilk.com. So you can go onto that map and it kind of links you with people that are selling raw milk. If you're in Canada, we don't have that map and it is quite illegal to buy raw milk, but just ask around. There's Facebook pages for almost every province to help farmers sort of discreetly link with consumers. Ask around in your communities, ask around at your farmers markets. You know, in a lot of parts of the world, or in a lot of parts of North America, raw milk is illegal, so you do have to be discreet about it. But you probably will be able to find it if you dig hard enough.

Yeah. Well, thank you again. And thank you all for listening or watching this episode of Everyday Ancestral. Make sure to follow us, make sure to subscribe, make sure to share. This is the way we get the word out, and please stay curious. Thank you again, Robyn. Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You can find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's E-A-T-P-L-U-C-K.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.