January 31, 2024 • 38 mins
As the scent of a perfectly aged cheese can transport you to the lush pastures of Vermont, our conversation with Sam Rheaume of Jasper Hill Farm will take you on a journey through the farms inner workings. The Kehler brothers' vision of preserving the rural economy through world-class cheese-making is not just a story of passion, but also one of revival and innovation.
We uncover the alchemy of grass-fed milk as it transforms into the likes of Whitney, Alpha Tolman, Harbison, Cabot Clothbound Cheddar and the unforgettable Bayley Hazen Blue. The artistry behind these cheeses is a dance of tradition and modernism, with each wheel meticulously nurtured to perfection. Join us as we celebrate the unsung heroes of the cheese world—the mongers, the makers, and the artisans—and explore how their work enhances our dining tables and stimulate our taste buds.
Be sure to indulge in the full experience by visiting Jasper Hill Farm’s online haunts, where the dialogue about these artisanal delights continues well beyond our chat.
Thank you Sam!, the Kehler brothers and Jasper Hill Farm family!,
https://www.jasperhillfarm.com/
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Episode Transcript
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Chef Massey (00:14):
Hey everyone, welcome to Chef Sense.
I'm your host, chef Massey.
We have in the studio SamRheaume from Jasper Hill Farm.
Absolutely love Jasper HillFarm.
Thank you for being here.
Sam Rheaume (00:28):
Thanks so much for having me.
We have a really dreary Vermontday out the window here.
You're pretty slushy.
Chef Massey (00:35):
Yeah, I know it's kind of the same here.
Is this mud season or is this ajoke?
So, Jasper Hill, I have alwaysbeen a huge fan of what you guys
do.
There's such a variety in thisartisanal cheese movement that
just continues to flourish inour country.
You guys are just thisepicenter of inspiration in my
(00:56):
book.
I get so much from what youguys do and profiles.
It's like magic.
So, yeah, can you go into whatyou do there at the farm and
work into the history a littlebit?
Sam Rheaume (01:08):
I'm on the sales side of what we do here.
I do sales and marketing.
I work with direct to consumermarketing.
I design all of our packaging,fun campaigns I suppose, yeah,
but we're a small business andwe're about 100 people total.
While those might be my mainroles, if it's the busy season
(01:32):
right before the holidays, I'munderground in the sellers like
wrapping bark around Harbison orwrapping up wheels of Bailey
Hazen Blue to go out to ourcustomers around the country.
It's a little all hands on deckwhile also trying to do what we
do.
And I guess, just somebackground about Jasper Hill.
(01:53):
Jasper Hill Farm and as itrelates to the artisanal cheese
movement in America, was born atjust the right time in a lot of
ways.
So back in the late 90s,brothers Andy and Matteo Kehler.
They had grown up visitingGreensboro, Vermont, where our
sellers are located up in theNortheast Kingdom, about 25
(02:14):
miles south of the Canadianborder.
So we're up in the TundraHighlands of Vermont, way out in
the middle of nowhere.
They grew up spending theirsummers in Greensboro and riding
their bikes around, going fromfarm to farm, spending time with
the animals, with the locals,and the place came to mean a lot
(02:37):
to them and the bucolic beautyof Greensboro was always this
sort of nexus of theirimagination of where they would
ideally like to spend theirlives, a meaningful place with
people that they love.
And in the late 90s the fluidmilk market was going through
(03:02):
some heavy pressure to dropprices.
So these mega farms in theMidwest were saturating the
market.
Farmers were having to take cuton 100 count of fluid milk and
in Vermont, especially in thisarea, because of the sort of
(03:22):
very terrain, herds arenecessarily like 200 head or
lighter, so small farms relativeto like a massive operation,
industrial operation that hasthousands of animals.
And so the Vermont dairy farmerwent through a near extinction
point in the late 90s, early2000s, where the math wasn't
(03:48):
working for a small herd.
Kehler Brothers saw thishappening and they saw it having
a dramatic impact on thelandscape up here in that summer
homes were being built on topof pastoral lands, right.
So they got their headstogether and they pooled every
(04:08):
cent that they had and they saidwhat can we do to bring the
most value to this agriculturallegacy of this landscape, in
order to preserve a workinglandscape and not see it turned
over into something that is alittle more barren and lacking
character and not supporting alocal economy.
(04:29):
If it's a seasonal economy thepeople who live up here year
round they begin to suffer aswell.
So they used cheese as themodel of how do we imbue as much
value into this agriculturalproduct.
The best way to do it is to Tomake a fancy European style
(04:51):
cheese that you are celebrating,that you're taking care of,
you're soaking it in like labor,love, time and attention and
creating this, this food that isIrrefutably outrageously
delicious.
That's like yes crucial to whatJasper Hill is trying to do on a
(05:12):
on an economic and social frontcommunity and economy because
what they're trying to do is usecheese as a lever to help
reinvigorate a rural landscapeby accessing markets that have
high amounts of wealthconcentration right.
So that that was one of the bigimpetuses is like we want to
(05:36):
save our Community, we want tosee the elementary school not
closed and we want to do it bymaking the best cheese possible.
So 2003 was their their firstever release.
We just celebrated 20 yearslast year.
Chef Massey (05:50):
No, that's amazing, Congratulations, thanks.
So, looking at the types ofcheeses, I mean you guys have,
is it, 13 different types ofcheeses overall?
Sam Rheaume (06:01):
It's about to be more Fantastic.
We always have an experimentgoing in the back of one cave or
other.
Yeah, we have a couple thatwe're excited to share with the
world this year, but yeah, Ithink our core collection
amounts to about 13 steadycheeses.
Chef Massey (06:20):
Okay, yeah, and you know, over the years of using
you guys, I mean there's a cut,there's a few that I haven't,
but I mean I love the Harbison,you know there's just.
I mean to be honest with you,there's just not any that you
guys do, it's just beautiful.
You know are looking at thatCabot Clothbound Cheddar, you
know even taking that rind, andlike if I'm making polenta, just
(06:40):
what's left of that rind, maybeshaving a little bit in there
to get that nuttiness, and thenyou know, but as I'm doing my
cream, putting that like youwould like a parmesan wheel, or,
you know, pecorino, you justsave that hard end and just let
it make magic in your sauce orin the polenta.
I was using actually that clothbound with this Abenaki Flower
(07:01):
which is, you know, anindigenous in the New England
area that the Abenaki Indiansuse, because I'm Indigenous as
well.
So I try to celebrate not justmy farming side of my family but
my indigenous side, becauseit's it's just awesome.
So you know, using your product, I mean it's just constant
inspiration, you know.
Or the Bailey Hazen.
And then you guys, I think Iknow you said, with marketing,
(07:22):
you do like, with your events,you do some raclette like the
Alpha Tolman.
Did you say something aboutsending that to Belgium too?
Sam Rheaume (07:29):
Yeah, yeah.
So Whitney actually is our mainraclette cheese these days.
We designed it specifically tobe like an immaculate Melter, so
just to kind of like break itdown.
I guess for your listeners.
We have, and I guess the bestway to talk about this is
through our sellers facilityright, so back in Seven, just
(07:54):
before you know the economy.
.
Chef Massey (07:56):
Yes, I remember that.
Sam Rheaume (07:59):
Yeah, the Kehler brothers.
You know we're able to secure aBig loan to essentially pump a
hillside full of tea and tea,blow it up, build a 22,000
square foot underground cheesebunker with seven specialized
vaults for affinage or theContrary, ration and finishing
(08:20):
of the cheese.
Those are the sellers at JasperHill, Cabot cloth bound
actually, which does atraditional bandage style
Cheddar so like what you wouldsee with an English cheddar.
That's a collaboration thatWith Cabot creamery that started
back in 2003.
(08:41):
They were seeing the birth ofthis American artisanal movement
and you know they're producingmuch more commodity style
cheddar generally.
But they have Such high qualitymilk coming in from local
farmers.
They wanted the opportunity todo a traditional bandage style
cheddar and, like, bring Cabotinto a more specialty shop
(09:06):
setting.
But they don't have thefacilities to do that.
So they called up a bunch ofcheese makers around Vermont and
we were the only ones to like,call them back and be like We'll
take, you know, 50 wheels orwhatever we could handle at the
time of your cloth bound andwe'll do all the maturation,
we'll brush it, we'll age itback in 2006.
It won Best of Show at theAmerican Cheese Society Awards.
(09:29):
So Andy and Matteo went down tothe bank with a wheel of cheese
and a trophy.
Chef Massey (09:36):
Oh, wow.
Sam Rheaume (09:37):
Give us some money.
We want to make this undergroundOn cellars.
So that was built in 2006 andreally all of the styles that we
make are sort of, they're partand parcel, not only to our
environment, our terroir, thelandscape, which we can talk
about later but also Um to thosevaults.
So Harbison, for instance,exists in the first of our
(09:59):
vaults, which is our bloomy rindvault.
So bloomy rind, if you think ofthat White brie, like it's a
penicillium mold, that is themajor component, as well as
geotrichum, some yeast as well,and that that vault has a high
degree of air exchange, becausethose molds require a lot of
(10:21):
oxygen to really thrive.
That's a very differentenvironment from, say, vault
three, which is where AlphaTolman and Whitney, which are
alpine style cheese, right andstyle cheeses, like your gruyere
is your comte, is yourappenzellers.
They have a more stagnantenvironment.
You walk in and air feelsheavier and it smells more
(10:44):
densely of of Geolithicprocesses.
So it's really the sellersthemselves, this unique facility
that we have, that gives usthis ability to have a broad
catalog stylistically.
Chef Massey (10:59):
Which is pretty amazing, Even looking at the
outer.
Like the Oma, can you describethat cheese a little bit?
That's interesting.
Sam Rheaume (11:08):
Oma is another one of our collaborative cheeses.
Originally we built the sellersas a means to help aggregate
and help mature cheese for othercheesemakers around the state.
So a lot of Vermont farms aresmall, they don't have access to
getting their cheese onto apallet to get into the supply
chain to a distribution hub andthen distributed further than
(11:32):
maybe just our region.
But we were trying to leveragethe volume that we were able to
do with Cabot Clothbound.
We would stack a pile atthree-quarters high with Cabot
Clothbound and then on top we'dhave other local cheeses, some
of which we were helping to age,some of which we weren't.
That was sort of the originalgoal of what we could do with
(11:55):
the sellers and leverage ahigher volume product.
Like Cabot Clothbound, oma isproduced at the Von Trapp
Farmstead, gavin and Weitzfield,vermont.
Those are the same Von Trapp'sas from the Sound of Music.
Chef Massey (12:11):
Yes, Adelweiss.
Sam Rheaume (12:13):
Adelweiss.
Chef Massey (12:16):
Don't ask me why.
I know that.
Sam Rheaume (12:19):
It's the wife.
Chef Massey (12:20):
It's the wife.
Sam Rheaume (12:21):
Okay, hey, I used to perform in musical theater.
There's no shade here.
Chef Massey (12:25):
Well, thank you.
Sam Rheaume (12:28):
So the Von Trapp's produced that cheese down at
their farmstead in Weitzfieldand then they ship it up to us.
It's a wash-dron cheese, so theappearance is kind of this
orange with maybe a dustyoverglow of like a light bloom.
And that orange is from aculture known as Breva Bacterium
(12:52):
linens.
It's a bacterial culture thatcreates that sort of
pigmentation, and they coexistalong with a lot of yeast as
well.
So aromatically it smells morelike funky, sourdough, bread-y,
sometimes a little like suede.
Chef Massey (13:09):
Yes, love it, animal-y.
Sam Rheaume (13:13):
And you know a lot of folks might be a little
anxious to try their firstwash-dron cheese, but I would
always say the bark is worsethan the bite.
So just by having a slightpungency aromatically on the
palate, omo has just buttery,like cultured butter, complex
(13:36):
butter, and sometimes you get alittle bit of fruit or even like
a cured meat kind of flavor,like a Selerai prosciutto.
Chef Massey (13:45):
Yeah, that would be great.
To pair with that with someMestarda, definitely Nice.
Sam Rheaume (13:51):
Apricots, apricots and wash-dron cheeses.
Chef Massey (13:54):
Yeah, that's what it's about.
I'm talking about yeah, well,nice, and also for some of our
listeners, you guys are strictlycow's milk, correct.
Sam Rheaume (14:03):
Oh well, as of 2019 , we've begun to dabble
elsewhere.
Chef Massey (14:08):
Okay, okay.
Sam Rheaume (14:10):
Yeah, we so.
Yes, our like year-roundavailable catalog is all cow's
milk.
We have a set of raw milkcheeses that are coming from a
single herd.
That is our own herd up inGlover, Vermont, and that herd
is like a whole other storybecause with our own cheeses and
(14:34):
our own raw milk cheeses wehave a very high bar for milk
composition as well as like justmilk cleanliness, and it turns
out a lot of what goes into likemaking a clean, well-balanced
milk is land management andnutrition, herd nutrition.
So we have entire facilitiesand teams set up to crop around
(15:00):
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Back to the episode, but.
Sam Rheaume (16:13):
I've got a little off topic here.
The question was about milksupply.
Chef Massey (16:22):
Yeah Well, just sharing with people that are
listening that you are cow'smilk and it's based off of that
raw milk and so on.
Sam Rheaume (16:28):
Yeah, so they're all cows, and then we have three
partner farms that are allmixed breed cows.
In 2019, however, we partneredwith two wonderful goat farmers
who are coming from the WestCoast, ryan and Andy Andrus, and
(16:49):
we facilitated the purchase ofone of these old barns that went
out of business in sort of late90s and it went through a phase
of attempted resuscitation,okay, but now we have about a
200 head goat herd.
Their milk is primarily goinginto bottles, actually.
Chef Massey (17:11):
Oh, no, kidding Okay.
Sam Rheaume (17:12):
Yeah, so they have.
We purchased a herd along witha bottled goat milk brand called
Oak Knoll which is nowdistributed sort of in the
Northeast and along the EasternLatoral.
Whenever we have excess goatmilk, which isn't very often,
but whenever we do, we have acheese we make called Eligo,
(17:35):
which is actually it's like Oma,it's a washdrying cheese.
That's a cow goat milk blend.
Chef Massey (17:42):
Okay, okay, very nice.
Wow, do you want to go throughyour rennet the process?
Sam Rheaume (17:48):
Yeah.
So I feel like I kind of haveto tie some ends together here,
because the journey of a rawmilk cheese is a linear.
Well, it's linear, but itinvolves a lot of like hard work
at every single stage.
So all of our raw milk cheesesbegin with the grass right.
The real goal, what we'retrying to capture is like the
(18:11):
richness of that summer sun asit soaks into the grass.
The cow eats it, itconcentrates that flavor, it
captures a lot of terroir, bothin the types of vegetation it's
eating, but also the microbesthat are off of the land onto
the cows utter and make theirway into the milk and actually
do provide positive attributesto our raw milk cheese.
(18:32):
That whole system of pasturingcows like getting them onto
grass, but also making sure theyhave that good, high quality
grass through the winter toproduce continually delicious
milk is a whole croppingoperation that's led by this
badass farmer, can I?
Chef Massey (18:53):
cuss, I'm sorry, absolutely.
Sam Rheaume (18:55):
This badass farmer, ellie Searles and her team, and
they're doing a ton to likesink carbon back into the
landscape biodeversed pasturesand really diverse feed for when
the cows winter so that grassgets concentrated into this like
very rich, dynamic milk when itcomes into the creamery.
(19:19):
The first thing you do when youmake a cheese is you start
culturing that milk right, so wewant to acidify it, and the
main acidifiers in all offermentation land are
lactobacilli, you know lacticacid bacteria, and we carry over
(19:39):
lactobacillus from every singlecheese we make, like a solar
system and beer or like a like astarter, yeah.
So we make yogurt.
We take some of the way Yep, aswell as some of the milk from
every cheese make, and thenwe're incubating it for several
(20:04):
days, making a yogurt, and thenwe're re inoculating with a lot
of these cultures, and these aresort of our wild and
environment specific cultures,one that's not only in our
landscape but very particularlyin our raw milk creamery.
So that's part of how we beginto make the cheese, as it
(20:26):
cultures and acidifies it Onceit hits a very specific point, a
very specific pH.
That's when we know, okay, it'stime to set the curd.
So we're pitching in rennet.
Now rennet I'm sure you'refamiliar with, but for those of
us who might not be, is acomplex of enzymes that are
(20:46):
originally derived from theabomasum of the cow, the fourth
stomach of an unweaned calf.
Right, they are what is helpingbaby cow digest milk.
The commercial, like commoditycheese now uses what's called
microbial rennet.
So they've actually been ableto genetically modify.
(21:08):
I believe it's fungi to producethese rennet enzymes and that's
the predominant rennet in a lotof commercial cheese.
You also see animal rennet, butin a concentrated vial.
What we're doing is we actuallyhave what are called VELS, or
just these chopped up abomasumswhich are a byproduct of you
(21:33):
can't actually produce them inthe US, so we get them from New
Zealand.
It's a byproduct of the NewZealand beef industry.
We're taking these little bitsof stomach and we're activating
them in a DL-buminized way.
Every cheese make you get curdsin way we make ricotta out of
some of that way.
(21:53):
All that fat and protein flowto the top and you get this
highly mineral what's calledsweet way or kaya.
We're infusing that with theseactual VELS, the abomasum, to
make our own traditional rennet.
This is how cheese makers didit ages ago.
There are still cheese makersin Europe who do it this way.
(22:14):
This is ostensibly the hard wayto do it.
It's because of variability inmilk and therefore the kaya.
You get some variability inthat rennet.
But as soon as we started usingthis we noted a market
difference in that depth offlavor, this lingering umami,
with Alcatelman and Whitney inparticular.
(22:36):
Once we started using it,whitney won Best of Show at the
American Cheese Society.
Chef Massey (22:41):
Oh, that's amazing.
Sam Rheaume (22:42):
The putting.
Chef Massey (22:44):
Oh, that's great.
Sam Rheaume (22:46):
But this is all just to illustrate, right, it's
like we're not like do it theeasy way.
People we're like do it becauseit tastes really delicious.
And that's the goal, and so wewill go to virtually any length
to make the cheese just a littlebit tastier.
Chef Massey (23:04):
And that's amazing.
What a commitment.
When you look at with yourcheeses, do you have any like
top sellers you recommend forpeople?
Sam Rheaume (23:12):
Yeah, I mean I would recommend the ones that
are probably easiest to acquireand are also like the most Well.
First of all, it's my job tosay try them all, right.
Chef Massey (23:25):
Yeah, right, right.
Sam Rheaume (23:28):
But the ones that you can find in the wild most
consistently are like Harbison,cabot Cloth Mound, probably Big
Alias in blue.
Harbison is a blue meurinecheese so it has that Brie type
rind and it's wrapped in sprucebark and this is like the
American original spruce barkwrap cheese.
We've seen others like appearbut Harbison was there first and
(23:52):
there's nothing like a goodHarbison.
So this one is.
If you're a fan of Brie and youlike that, like sweet cream,
you like the slightly likebutton mushroomy aroma of a Brie
rind, you like sometimes it hasa brassica flavor to it, like a
cauliflower.
(24:13):
Harbison like walks thisbalance between buttered popcorn
and mustardy.
When it's really young it cansmell like fresh raspberries and
as you get close to the barkthat surrounds it you get a
little bit of that woodsy resinykind of quality of the spruce.
(24:35):
It's this great gradient.
It's a great cheese to enjoyJust on its own.
Smack it in the middle of acheese platter.
It's pretty, it's round and youget this gradient of flavor.
You know that butter in themiddle and then, as you get
further out, to the rind of all.
Chef Massey (24:51):
Yeah, the magic.
It's all magical.
That's one of my favorites too,by the way, what's your
favorite cheese or cheeses thatyou have there?
Sam Rheaume (25:00):
I'm an Alpha Tolman super fan, I think, like I
obviously love all of thecheeses we produce and I love
them all for their own occasionand uses, but Alpha Tolman is
the cheese that I will alwayshave on hand.
(25:20):
Yeah yeah, I find that it'slike shredability quotient oh
yeah is great.
It like shreds well, it meltsbeautifully, it has like this
depth and complexity of flavorand just because I'm so close to
the source, you just get a lotof batch variation.
(25:41):
You know, every batch is like anew vintage of wine and we're
making a vintage a day,basically, which is amazing.
It's great for doing likevertical taste you can really
drill down on what the standardflavors and aromas are and then,
like right, what othersecondary and tertiary flavors
(26:01):
and aromas can pop up due towhatever caused the badge to be
different that really is amazing.
Chef Massey (26:06):
You know, and I think you know for those people
that are listening to you can goon the website and look up.
Sam Rheaume (26:11):
You know the profiles and pairing, which is
great for people that arelearning yeah, yeah, exactly,
and it's our hope to get moresensory evaluation resources out
there for the community to use.
You know, a big part of what wedo is tasting the cheese as it
ages, um, so every single batchhas like a test wheel that
(26:34):
accompanies it throughout itslife, and we have a sensory
program manager who is goingthrough with both cheese makers
and often yours, and they'replugging those wheels, they're
tasting their benchmarking likeokay, here's what a five month
alpha needs to taste like,here's what a six month alpha
should taste like.
Um, and just evaluating whenthe cheese is ready to get out
(26:57):
there.
Because, again, our goal ofproviding value in order to like
build our local economy, ourlocal community and to like sink
carbon back into our landscapeis all based on like how
delicious is that, jesus?
Chef Massey (27:12):
so we need to be tasting it all the time so stay
tuned for more sensory which isgreat.
I mean, I don't think peoplerealize that, because you know
you look at a brewmaster andwine making you know, everybody
as you look at like bourbons andtasting these things and
cheeses are the same way, andthat skill set in that person
tasting it, being able torecognize that they're, they're
(27:33):
matched up, you know, is prettyawesome it's about, like,
standardizing the palette.
Sam Rheaume (27:39):
You know, it's one thing to make note of an aroma
or a flavor, but it's anotherthing to calibrate a language
between multiple people andcreating some sort of like
standard by which, you know,multiple perceptions can align
on a few basic vectors.
(27:59):
I guess, right so right, thebiggest things that our sensory
teams of cheese makers oftenyears, and our program manager
are looking at our like, ourquantifiable like acidity, like,
sweetness, texture, very liketangible things, and we kind of
unify our.
(28:19):
We've developed our own unit ofmeasure for the final like.
But is it good?
And it's called the df or thedeliciousness factor.
So that's our like, overallgrading, and it it's the
composite of these other aspectsof a cheese you know, with
cheeses it's like you know withfarming there's a season to it.
Chef Massey (28:40):
Cheese rolls that same way you know.
Sam Rheaume (28:42):
In fact we have a cheese that capitalizes on the
seasonality of cheese, winamere.
So when a mirror is a seasonalraw milk cheese that we make
with winter milk.
So when cows transition off ofpasture and back into like
boarded barn, life for thewinter diet is shifting, as are
(29:06):
there, like color expenditures.
You know cows, they're bigbeasts.
It takes a lot of energy towalk out there to the field to
graze around.
So summer milk tends to be alittle leaner, whereas once they
transition off of pasture forthe season there's a spike of,
you know, relatively higher fat.
(29:28):
Like in terms of percentages itdoesn't look like a lot, but in
terms of milk composition, asit pertains to cheese making, it
has an impact right, yeah, andI love that cheese too.
Chef Massey (29:39):
By the way, I know you guys deal with your volume
and you're really focused on thebusiness side of it.
Do you guys offer any sort oflike cheese pairing or cheese
making classes for the community?
Sam Rheaume (29:49):
yeah, so we do a lot of events out there when,
whenever we are able to as asmall team, and we do a lot with
various restaurants, bothregionally and and in further
flung parts.
Our biggest program that we runup in our neck of the woods is
(30:09):
primarily geared towards cheeseprofessionals or food
professionals.
We call it cheese camp.
Oh cool, happens in May.
It's geared towards folks whoare testing for the CCP
certified cheese professional,yeah, and so we bring them up.
We have a local lodge, theHighland Lodge, that has cabins,
(30:33):
so we go for that camp.
We do take breaks and, like sitout by the lake.
Right at the center ofGreensboro is is Caspian Lake,
which is this beautiful glaciallike.
They'll come up for a three dayintensive that includes farm
tours, cave tours, as well ashours of lectures that discuss,
(30:54):
you know, things like milkcomposition, talking about what
happens to casein, you know, asit's getting snipped apart, what
, what?
The proteolysis, as you know,the impact of proteolysis as the
cheese ages in the vault.
We also do sensory evaluationworkshops, so it's a little more
intensive and geared towardsfolks within the industry.
Chef Massey (31:17):
Yeah, we're out at public events and as well, doing
education and the like andthat's amazing too, because I
mean there are there have beenfarms here that are closer to me
, or you know, I've gone withsome of the kitchen team and
we've made cheeses you know, andthere's just you know whether
you're going out and picking oryou're foraging.
When you get the privilege to gointo an operation like that,
(31:39):
you're like it's veryenlightening and there's such a
whole nother level ofappreciation that's gained yeah,
and it's a lot of informationto take it in, because science
you know, yeah, it's almostalchemy.
Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
I know when I was, when we weremaking cheeses, and you're
going through the equations andthe amounts and you know you're
cutting the curd and you're andthe beauty of like you know,
(32:02):
taking that cheese and pressingit into its form and you know,
not to mention the process ofthe aging or or rindwashing,
continually, and it's justunbelievable.
Sam Rheaume (32:13):
So yeah, it's months of like patient,
persistent work, which can feela little quotidian at times, but
when you get to enjoy thatcheese, at the end of the day
it's, you can tell it's worth it.
Chef Massey (32:27):
Right, exactly.
Sam Rheaume (32:28):
We another just going to give a quick shout out.
Another event that we'veinvested a lot in over the years
is the cheese monger invitation.
It's a very traditional.
Chef Massey (32:39):
Oh, very cool.
Sam Rheaume (32:40):
You know, with that .
Chef Massey (32:40):
Yeah.
Sam Rheaume (32:45):
It's down in New York, run by a very close friend
of you know, andy and Matteo,and so everyone who works here
out of Moscow it's.
He's done a lot for the culturewithin the American artisanal
cheese movement to edify thecheese monger which you know.
They're the last person betweenyou know us and the like happy
(33:10):
cheese lover who's buying awedge of fabric cloth bound for
maybe the first time, right.
And they're the ones who whoare the real storytellers and
educators in our industry andthey do a lot to like bring you
know the general public on board.
One you know, one mouth at atime, yeah, so we get the
(33:34):
privilege to like go down thereduring that event and
participate with other otherproducers who are peers, and we
have a very sort of familialapproach to other makers in this
space, in our industry, in thiscountry, yeah, where it's like
a rising tide lifts all boats,and so we, we all get in there
together and we get a lot offace time with, like the best
(33:56):
and brightest of the of themonger.
The mongers that are out there.
They come from all over toparticipate in this event and
compete to be the cheese mongerof the year.
Chef Massey (34:06):
And that's amazing too.
You know it's funny at.
My next door neighbor is MattRubner.
Owns Rubner's cheese mongers inGreat Barrington.
So you know going in there andseeing what Matt does in his
team he really celebrates thebeauty of cheese from everywhere
and it's inspiring.
Sam Rheaume (34:26):
So and the the breadth.
And Rubner's is great, by theway.
They're.
They're good pals and it reallydoes behoove a cheese shop to
like engage with the breadth ofnot just what like we produce or
even what's produced within theUnited States, but, like
there's so much tremendousinteresting cheese, and to be
(34:51):
able to taste it in settingslike that where they're getting
it with enough shelf life andthey know how to care for that
cheese and allow it to, sort of,you know, live its fullest life
after it leaves the caves.
That takes a lot of skill andit takes a lot of passion.
So we appreciate everyone inthe industry who is, who is
(35:14):
who's taking care of the cheeseand really like embracing the
breadth, and there is a lot ofdifferent cheese there.
Chef Massey (35:20):
So it's unbelievable.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, Sam, I really do.
You know I appreciate your time.
I thank you for, you know,jumping in on this episode, Chef
Sense, and really sharing whatI feel as an example to other
cheese makers.
It's so inspiring to take whatyou all are gifted at doing and
(35:43):
go.
It's my job now to take thatbaton that you've handed me and
make a memory that someonehopefully never forgets on the
plate.
Sam Rheaume (35:51):
So Well, I, speaking from my own experience
I know the experience of a lotof people who have been here for
a long time it makes you feelproud to see something you spent
so much time and effort on, Getthat extra level of veneration
(36:12):
in a restaurant and to findunique angles at like
approaching the cheese in a waythat we might not be thinking of
and, given our context, youknow we're in the weeds with
very microscopic details.
Sometimes you forget to backout and kind of appreciate a
gestalt of mixing the cheesewith a new flavor or or treating
(36:34):
it in a new way.
So much much depreciation toall the chefs out there who are,
who are using our cheeses, andto you in particular, chef for,
for thinking to feature us andhaving oh absolutely On the air.
Chef Massey (36:46):
Yeah, it's been great.
You know, going to your websiteis the best way to, you know,
connect with you guys.
Sam Rheaume (36:52):
Yes, indeed, Jasper Hill Farm dot com.
Or you can follow us onInstagram and talk to me
personally, probably.
Chef Massey (37:00):
Yeah.
Sam Rheaume (37:03):
We're very customer oriented.
You know we do sell a littlebit of cheese online, but we are
more than happy to field.
We get questions all the timevia email or over the phone from
people who just happened topick up a harbison at a cheese
shop and and they are wonderingabout what kind of wood is on
the outside or why there mightbe a little bit of blue, green
(37:27):
penicillin mold on the on thebark, which is totally normal.
It's totally normal, but we arehappy to entertain those
questions and you can certainlylearn a lot more about all of
our cheeses.
I feel like we only scratch thesurface here and yeah, and they
updated on what's coming out.
Chef Massey (37:48):
You know, go to the website, learn more.
They've got profiles, they'vegot pairings on there.
It's inspiring.
Stay connected with theseamazing people.
You know, and Sam, hopefullymaybe we can do another episode
with future stuff down the road.
Sam Rheaume (38:03):
Yeah Well, if we do it in person, I will.
I'll bring the cheese.
Chef Massey (38:06):
You know what I'll do I'll stop by King Arthur's
flower and then drop by.
How's that?
How's that?
Sam Rheaume (38:12):
I like that there you go.
We'll do it from the vaults.
Chef Massey (38:15):
There we go that sounds like that, sounds like a
memory maker, so nice oh yeah,yeah, right, right, that's
awesome.
Well, all right.
Well, you all take care, andthanks again.
Sam Rheaume (38:27):
Thank you.
Chef Massey (38:27):
Chef Massey.
Yeah, all right, everyone.
That is a wrap.
You can check us out if youlike that.
Subscribe Also the InstagramChef Massey.
Let's keep it simple, ChefMasseycom, have a good one.
Bye for now.
Hey everyone, welcome to Chef Sense.
I'm your host, chef Massey.
We have in the studio SamRheaume from Jasper Hill Farm.
Absolutely love Jasper HillFarm.
Thank you for being here.
Sam Rheaume (00:28):
Thanks so much for having me.
We have a really dreary Vermontday out the window here.
You're pretty slushy.
Chef Massey (00:35):
Yeah, I know it's kind of the same here.
Is this mud season or is this ajoke?
So, Jasper Hill, I have alwaysbeen a huge fan of what you guys
do.
There's such a variety in thisartisanal cheese movement that
just continues to flourish inour country.
You guys are just thisepicenter of inspiration in my
(00:56):
book.
I get so much from what youguys do and profiles.
It's like magic.
So, yeah, can you go into whatyou do there at the farm and
work into the history a littlebit?
Sam Rheaume (01:08):
I'm on the sales side of what we do here.
I do sales and marketing.
I work with direct to consumermarketing.
I design all of our packaging,fun campaigns I suppose, yeah,
but we're a small business andwe're about 100 people total.
While those might be my mainroles, if it's the busy season
(01:32):
right before the holidays, I'munderground in the sellers like
wrapping bark around Harbison orwrapping up wheels of Bailey
Hazen Blue to go out to ourcustomers around the country.
It's a little all hands on deckwhile also trying to do what we
do.
And I guess, just somebackground about Jasper Hill.
(01:53):
Jasper Hill Farm and as itrelates to the artisanal cheese
movement in America, was born atjust the right time in a lot of
ways.
So back in the late 90s,brothers Andy and Matteo Kehler.
They had grown up visitingGreensboro, Vermont, where our
sellers are located up in theNortheast Kingdom, about 25
(02:14):
miles south of the Canadianborder.
So we're up in the TundraHighlands of Vermont, way out in
the middle of nowhere.
They grew up spending theirsummers in Greensboro and riding
their bikes around, going fromfarm to farm, spending time with
the animals, with the locals,and the place came to mean a lot
(02:37):
to them and the bucolic beautyof Greensboro was always this
sort of nexus of theirimagination of where they would
ideally like to spend theirlives, a meaningful place with
people that they love.
And in the late 90s the fluidmilk market was going through
(03:02):
some heavy pressure to dropprices.
So these mega farms in theMidwest were saturating the
market.
Farmers were having to take cuton 100 count of fluid milk and
in Vermont, especially in thisarea, because of the sort of
(03:22):
very terrain, herds arenecessarily like 200 head or
lighter, so small farms relativeto like a massive operation,
industrial operation that hasthousands of animals.
And so the Vermont dairy farmerwent through a near extinction
point in the late 90s, early2000s, where the math wasn't
(03:48):
working for a small herd.
Kehler Brothers saw thishappening and they saw it having
a dramatic impact on thelandscape up here in that summer
homes were being built on topof pastoral lands, right.
So they got their headstogether and they pooled every
(04:08):
cent that they had and they saidwhat can we do to bring the
most value to this agriculturallegacy of this landscape, in
order to preserve a workinglandscape and not see it turned
over into something that is alittle more barren and lacking
character and not supporting alocal economy.
(04:29):
If it's a seasonal economy thepeople who live up here year
round they begin to suffer aswell.
So they used cheese as themodel of how do we imbue as much
value into this agriculturalproduct.
The best way to do it is to Tomake a fancy European style
(04:51):
cheese that you are celebrating,that you're taking care of,
you're soaking it in like labor,love, time and attention and
creating this, this food that isIrrefutably outrageously
delicious.
That's like yes crucial to whatJasper Hill is trying to do on a
(05:12):
on an economic and social frontcommunity and economy because
what they're trying to do is usecheese as a lever to help
reinvigorate a rural landscapeby accessing markets that have
high amounts of wealthconcentration right.
So that that was one of the bigimpetuses is like we want to
(05:36):
save our Community, we want tosee the elementary school not
closed and we want to do it bymaking the best cheese possible.
So 2003 was their their firstever release.
We just celebrated 20 yearslast year.
Chef Massey (05:50):
No, that's amazing, Congratulations, thanks.
So, looking at the types ofcheeses, I mean you guys have,
is it, 13 different types ofcheeses overall?
Sam Rheaume (06:01):
It's about to be more Fantastic.
We always have an experimentgoing in the back of one cave or
other.
Yeah, we have a couple thatwe're excited to share with the
world this year, but yeah, Ithink our core collection
amounts to about 13 steadycheeses.
Chef Massey (06:20):
Okay, yeah, and you know, over the years of using
you guys, I mean there's a cut,there's a few that I haven't,
but I mean I love the Harbison,you know there's just.
I mean to be honest with you,there's just not any that you
guys do, it's just beautiful.
You know are looking at thatCabot Clothbound Cheddar, you
know even taking that rind, andlike if I'm making polenta, just
(06:40):
what's left of that rind, maybeshaving a little bit in there
to get that nuttiness, and thenyou know, but as I'm doing my
cream, putting that like youwould like a parmesan wheel, or,
you know, pecorino, you justsave that hard end and just let
it make magic in your sauce orin the polenta.
I was using actually that clothbound with this Abenaki Flower
(07:01):
which is, you know, anindigenous in the New England
area that the Abenaki Indiansuse, because I'm Indigenous as
well.
So I try to celebrate not justmy farming side of my family but
my indigenous side, becauseit's it's just awesome.
So you know, using your product, I mean it's just constant
inspiration, you know.
Or the Bailey Hazen.
And then you guys, I think Iknow you said, with marketing,
(07:22):
you do like, with your events,you do some raclette like the
Alpha Tolman.
Did you say something aboutsending that to Belgium too?
Sam Rheaume (07:29):
Yeah, yeah.
So Whitney actually is our mainraclette cheese these days.
We designed it specifically tobe like an immaculate Melter, so
just to kind of like break itdown.
I guess for your listeners.
We have, and I guess the bestway to talk about this is
through our sellers facilityright, so back in Seven, just
(07:54):
before you know the economy.
.
Chef Massey (07:56):
Yes, I remember that.
Sam Rheaume (07:59):
Yeah, the Kehler brothers.
You know we're able to secure aBig loan to essentially pump a
hillside full of tea and tea,blow it up, build a 22,000
square foot underground cheesebunker with seven specialized
vaults for affinage or theContrary, ration and finishing
(08:20):
of the cheese.
Those are the sellers at JasperHill, Cabot cloth bound
actually, which does atraditional bandage style
Cheddar so like what you wouldsee with an English cheddar.
That's a collaboration thatWith Cabot creamery that started
back in 2003.
(08:41):
They were seeing the birth ofthis American artisanal movement
and you know they're producingmuch more commodity style
cheddar generally.
But they have Such high qualitymilk coming in from local
farmers.
They wanted the opportunity todo a traditional bandage style
cheddar and, like, bring Cabotinto a more specialty shop
(09:06):
setting.
But they don't have thefacilities to do that.
So they called up a bunch ofcheese makers around Vermont and
we were the only ones to like,call them back and be like We'll
take, you know, 50 wheels orwhatever we could handle at the
time of your cloth bound andwe'll do all the maturation,
we'll brush it, we'll age itback in 2006.
It won Best of Show at theAmerican Cheese Society Awards.
(09:29):
So Andy and Matteo went down tothe bank with a wheel of cheese
and a trophy.
Chef Massey (09:36):
Oh, wow.
Sam Rheaume (09:37):
Give us some money.
We want to make this undergroundOn cellars.
So that was built in 2006 andreally all of the styles that we
make are sort of, they're partand parcel, not only to our
environment, our terroir, thelandscape, which we can talk
about later but also Um to thosevaults.
So Harbison, for instance,exists in the first of our
(09:59):
vaults, which is our bloomy rindvault.
So bloomy rind, if you think ofthat White brie, like it's a
penicillium mold, that is themajor component, as well as
geotrichum, some yeast as well,and that that vault has a high
degree of air exchange, becausethose molds require a lot of
(10:21):
oxygen to really thrive.
That's a very differentenvironment from, say, vault
three, which is where AlphaTolman and Whitney, which are
alpine style cheese, right andstyle cheeses, like your gruyere
is your comte, is yourappenzellers.
They have a more stagnantenvironment.
You walk in and air feelsheavier and it smells more
(10:44):
densely of of Geolithicprocesses.
So it's really the sellersthemselves, this unique facility
that we have, that gives usthis ability to have a broad
catalog stylistically.
Chef Massey (10:59):
Which is pretty amazing, Even looking at the
outer.
Like the Oma, can you describethat cheese a little bit?
That's interesting.
Sam Rheaume (11:08):
Oma is another one of our collaborative cheeses.
Originally we built the sellersas a means to help aggregate
and help mature cheese for othercheesemakers around the state.
So a lot of Vermont farms aresmall, they don't have access to
getting their cheese onto apallet to get into the supply
chain to a distribution hub andthen distributed further than
(11:32):
maybe just our region.
But we were trying to leveragethe volume that we were able to
do with Cabot Clothbound.
We would stack a pile atthree-quarters high with Cabot
Clothbound and then on top we'dhave other local cheeses, some
of which we were helping to age,some of which we weren't.
That was sort of the originalgoal of what we could do with
(11:55):
the sellers and leverage ahigher volume product.
Like Cabot Clothbound, oma isproduced at the Von Trapp
Farmstead, gavin and Weitzfield,vermont.
Those are the same Von Trapp'sas from the Sound of Music.
Chef Massey (12:11):
Yes, Adelweiss.
Sam Rheaume (12:13):
Adelweiss.
Chef Massey (12:16):
Don't ask me why.
I know that.
Sam Rheaume (12:19):
It's the wife.
Chef Massey (12:20):
It's the wife.
Sam Rheaume (12:21):
Okay, hey, I used to perform in musical theater.
There's no shade here.
Chef Massey (12:25):
Well, thank you.
Sam Rheaume (12:28):
So the Von Trapp's produced that cheese down at
their farmstead in Weitzfieldand then they ship it up to us.
It's a wash-dron cheese, so theappearance is kind of this
orange with maybe a dustyoverglow of like a light bloom.
And that orange is from aculture known as Breva Bacterium
(12:52):
linens.
It's a bacterial culture thatcreates that sort of
pigmentation, and they coexistalong with a lot of yeast as
well.
So aromatically it smells morelike funky, sourdough, bread-y,
sometimes a little like suede.
Chef Massey (13:09):
Yes, love it, animal-y.
Sam Rheaume (13:13):
And you know a lot of folks might be a little
anxious to try their firstwash-dron cheese, but I would
always say the bark is worsethan the bite.
So just by having a slightpungency aromatically on the
palate, omo has just buttery,like cultured butter, complex
(13:36):
butter, and sometimes you get alittle bit of fruit or even like
a cured meat kind of flavor,like a Selerai prosciutto.
Chef Massey (13:45):
Yeah, that would be great.
To pair with that with someMestarda, definitely Nice.
Sam Rheaume (13:51):
Apricots, apricots and wash-dron cheeses.
Chef Massey (13:54):
Yeah, that's what it's about.
I'm talking about yeah, well,nice, and also for some of our
listeners, you guys are strictlycow's milk, correct.
Sam Rheaume (14:03):
Oh well, as of 2019 , we've begun to dabble
elsewhere.
Chef Massey (14:08):
Okay, okay.
Sam Rheaume (14:10):
Yeah, we so.
Yes, our like year-roundavailable catalog is all cow's
milk.
We have a set of raw milkcheeses that are coming from a
single herd.
That is our own herd up inGlover, Vermont, and that herd
is like a whole other storybecause with our own cheeses and
(14:34):
our own raw milk cheeses wehave a very high bar for milk
composition as well as like justmilk cleanliness, and it turns
out a lot of what goes into likemaking a clean, well-balanced
milk is land management andnutrition, herd nutrition.
So we have entire facilitiesand teams set up to crop around
(15:00):
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Back to the episode, but.
Sam Rheaume (16:13):
I've got a little off topic here.
The question was about milksupply.
Chef Massey (16:22):
Yeah Well, just sharing with people that are
listening that you are cow'smilk and it's based off of that
raw milk and so on.
Sam Rheaume (16:28):
Yeah, so they're all cows, and then we have three
partner farms that are allmixed breed cows.
In 2019, however, we partneredwith two wonderful goat farmers
who are coming from the WestCoast, ryan and Andy Andrus, and
(16:49):
we facilitated the purchase ofone of these old barns that went
out of business in sort of late90s and it went through a phase
of attempted resuscitation,okay, but now we have about a
200 head goat herd.
Their milk is primarily goinginto bottles, actually.
Chef Massey (17:11):
Oh, no, kidding Okay.
Sam Rheaume (17:12):
Yeah, so they have.
We purchased a herd along witha bottled goat milk brand called
Oak Knoll which is nowdistributed sort of in the
Northeast and along the EasternLatoral.
Whenever we have excess goatmilk, which isn't very often,
but whenever we do, we have acheese we make called Eligo,
(17:35):
which is actually it's like Oma,it's a washdrying cheese.
That's a cow goat milk blend.
Chef Massey (17:42):
Okay, okay, very nice.
Wow, do you want to go throughyour rennet the process?
Sam Rheaume (17:48):
Yeah.
So I feel like I kind of haveto tie some ends together here,
because the journey of a rawmilk cheese is a linear.
Well, it's linear, but itinvolves a lot of like hard work
at every single stage.
So all of our raw milk cheesesbegin with the grass right.
The real goal, what we'retrying to capture is like the
(18:11):
richness of that summer sun asit soaks into the grass.
The cow eats it, itconcentrates that flavor, it
captures a lot of terroir, bothin the types of vegetation it's
eating, but also the microbesthat are off of the land onto
the cows utter and make theirway into the milk and actually
do provide positive attributesto our raw milk cheese.
(18:32):
That whole system of pasturingcows like getting them onto
grass, but also making sure theyhave that good, high quality
grass through the winter toproduce continually delicious
milk is a whole croppingoperation that's led by this
badass farmer, can I?
Chef Massey (18:53):
cuss, I'm sorry, absolutely.
Sam Rheaume (18:55):
This badass farmer, ellie Searles and her team, and
they're doing a ton to likesink carbon back into the
landscape biodeversed pasturesand really diverse feed for when
the cows winter so that grassgets concentrated into this like
very rich, dynamic milk when itcomes into the creamery.
(19:19):
The first thing you do when youmake a cheese is you start
culturing that milk right, so wewant to acidify it, and the
main acidifiers in all offermentation land are
lactobacilli, you know lacticacid bacteria, and we carry over
(19:39):
lactobacillus from every singlecheese we make, like a solar
system and beer or like a like astarter, yeah.
So we make yogurt.
We take some of the way Yep, aswell as some of the milk from
every cheese make, and thenwe're incubating it for several
(20:04):
days, making a yogurt, and thenwe're re inoculating with a lot
of these cultures, and these aresort of our wild and
environment specific cultures,one that's not only in our
landscape but very particularlyin our raw milk creamery.
So that's part of how we beginto make the cheese, as it
(20:26):
cultures and acidifies it Onceit hits a very specific point, a
very specific pH.
That's when we know, okay, it'stime to set the curd.
So we're pitching in rennet.
Now rennet I'm sure you'refamiliar with, but for those of
us who might not be, is acomplex of enzymes that are
(20:46):
originally derived from theabomasum of the cow, the fourth
stomach of an unweaned calf.
Right, they are what is helpingbaby cow digest milk.
The commercial, like commoditycheese now uses what's called
microbial rennet.
So they've actually been ableto genetically modify.
(21:08):
I believe it's fungi to producethese rennet enzymes and that's
the predominant rennet in a lotof commercial cheese.
You also see animal rennet, butin a concentrated vial.
What we're doing is we actuallyhave what are called VELS, or
just these chopped up abomasumswhich are a byproduct of you
(21:33):
can't actually produce them inthe US, so we get them from New
Zealand.
It's a byproduct of the NewZealand beef industry.
We're taking these little bitsof stomach and we're activating
them in a DL-buminized way.
Every cheese make you get curdsin way we make ricotta out of
some of that way.
(21:53):
All that fat and protein flowto the top and you get this
highly mineral what's calledsweet way or kaya.
We're infusing that with theseactual VELS, the abomasum, to
make our own traditional rennet.
This is how cheese makers didit ages ago.
There are still cheese makersin Europe who do it this way.
(22:14):
This is ostensibly the hard wayto do it.
It's because of variability inmilk and therefore the kaya.
You get some variability inthat rennet.
But as soon as we started usingthis we noted a market
difference in that depth offlavor, this lingering umami,
with Alcatelman and Whitney inparticular.
(22:36):
Once we started using it,whitney won Best of Show at the
American Cheese Society.
Chef Massey (22:41):
Oh, that's amazing.
Sam Rheaume (22:42):
The putting.
Chef Massey (22:44):
Oh, that's great.
Sam Rheaume (22:46):
But this is all just to illustrate, right, it's
like we're not like do it theeasy way.
People we're like do it becauseit tastes really delicious.
And that's the goal, and so wewill go to virtually any length
to make the cheese just a littlebit tastier.
Chef Massey (23:04):
And that's amazing.
What a commitment.
When you look at with yourcheeses, do you have any like
top sellers you recommend forpeople?
Sam Rheaume (23:12):
Yeah, I mean I would recommend the ones that
are probably easiest to acquireand are also like the most Well.
First of all, it's my job tosay try them all, right.
Chef Massey (23:25):
Yeah, right, right.
Sam Rheaume (23:28):
But the ones that you can find in the wild most
consistently are like Harbison,cabot Cloth Mound, probably Big
Alias in blue.
Harbison is a blue meurinecheese so it has that Brie type
rind and it's wrapped in sprucebark and this is like the
American original spruce barkwrap cheese.
We've seen others like appearbut Harbison was there first and
(23:52):
there's nothing like a goodHarbison.
So this one is.
If you're a fan of Brie and youlike that, like sweet cream,
you like the slightly likebutton mushroomy aroma of a Brie
rind, you like sometimes it hasa brassica flavor to it, like a
cauliflower.
(24:13):
Harbison like walks thisbalance between buttered popcorn
and mustardy.
When it's really young it cansmell like fresh raspberries and
as you get close to the barkthat surrounds it you get a
little bit of that woodsy resinykind of quality of the spruce.
(24:35):
It's this great gradient.
It's a great cheese to enjoyJust on its own.
Smack it in the middle of acheese platter.
It's pretty, it's round and youget this gradient of flavor.
You know that butter in themiddle and then, as you get
further out, to the rind of all.
Chef Massey (24:51):
Yeah, the magic.
It's all magical.
That's one of my favorites too,by the way, what's your
favorite cheese or cheeses thatyou have there?
Sam Rheaume (25:00):
I'm an Alpha Tolman super fan, I think, like I
obviously love all of thecheeses we produce and I love
them all for their own occasionand uses, but Alpha Tolman is
the cheese that I will alwayshave on hand.
(25:20):
Yeah yeah, I find that it'slike shredability quotient oh
yeah is great.
It like shreds well, it meltsbeautifully, it has like this
depth and complexity of flavorand just because I'm so close to
the source, you just get a lotof batch variation.
(25:41):
You know, every batch is like anew vintage of wine and we're
making a vintage a day,basically, which is amazing.
It's great for doing likevertical taste you can really
drill down on what the standardflavors and aromas are and then,
like right, what othersecondary and tertiary flavors
(26:01):
and aromas can pop up due towhatever caused the badge to be
different that really is amazing.
Chef Massey (26:06):
You know, and I think you know for those people
that are listening to you can goon the website and look up.
Sam Rheaume (26:11):
You know the profiles and pairing, which is
great for people that arelearning yeah, yeah, exactly,
and it's our hope to get moresensory evaluation resources out
there for the community to use.
You know, a big part of what wedo is tasting the cheese as it
ages, um, so every single batchhas like a test wheel that
(26:34):
accompanies it throughout itslife, and we have a sensory
program manager who is goingthrough with both cheese makers
and often yours, and they'replugging those wheels, they're
tasting their benchmarking likeokay, here's what a five month
alpha needs to taste like,here's what a six month alpha
should taste like.
Um, and just evaluating whenthe cheese is ready to get out
(26:57):
there.
Because, again, our goal ofproviding value in order to like
build our local economy, ourlocal community and to like sink
carbon back into our landscapeis all based on like how
delicious is that, jesus?
Chef Massey (27:12):
so we need to be tasting it all the time so stay
tuned for more sensory which isgreat.
I mean, I don't think peoplerealize that, because you know
you look at a brewmaster andwine making you know, everybody
as you look at like bourbons andtasting these things and
cheeses are the same way, andthat skill set in that person
tasting it, being able torecognize that they're, they're
(27:33):
matched up, you know, is prettyawesome it's about, like,
standardizing the palette.
Sam Rheaume (27:39):
You know, it's one thing to make note of an aroma
or a flavor, but it's anotherthing to calibrate a language
between multiple people andcreating some sort of like
standard by which, you know,multiple perceptions can align
on a few basic vectors.
(27:59):
I guess, right so right, thebiggest things that our sensory
teams of cheese makers oftenyears, and our program manager
are looking at our like, ourquantifiable like acidity, like,
sweetness, texture, very liketangible things, and we kind of
unify our.
(28:19):
We've developed our own unit ofmeasure for the final like.
But is it good?
And it's called the df or thedeliciousness factor.
So that's our like, overallgrading, and it it's the
composite of these other aspectsof a cheese you know, with
cheeses it's like you know withfarming there's a season to it.
Chef Massey (28:40):
Cheese rolls that same way you know.
Sam Rheaume (28:42):
In fact we have a cheese that capitalizes on the
seasonality of cheese, winamere.
So when a mirror is a seasonalraw milk cheese that we make
with winter milk.
So when cows transition off ofpasture and back into like
boarded barn, life for thewinter diet is shifting, as are
(29:06):
there, like color expenditures.
You know cows, they're bigbeasts.
It takes a lot of energy towalk out there to the field to
graze around.
So summer milk tends to be alittle leaner, whereas once they
transition off of pasture forthe season there's a spike of,
you know, relatively higher fat.
(29:28):
Like in terms of percentages itdoesn't look like a lot, but in
terms of milk composition, asit pertains to cheese making, it
has an impact right, yeah, andI love that cheese too.
Chef Massey (29:39):
By the way, I know you guys deal with your volume
and you're really focused on thebusiness side of it.
Do you guys offer any sort oflike cheese pairing or cheese
making classes for the community?
Sam Rheaume (29:49):
yeah, so we do a lot of events out there when,
whenever we are able to as asmall team, and we do a lot with
various restaurants, bothregionally and and in further
flung parts.
Our biggest program that we runup in our neck of the woods is
(30:09):
primarily geared towards cheeseprofessionals or food
professionals.
We call it cheese camp.
Oh cool, happens in May.
It's geared towards folks whoare testing for the CCP
certified cheese professional,yeah, and so we bring them up.
We have a local lodge, theHighland Lodge, that has cabins,
(30:33):
so we go for that camp.
We do take breaks and, like sitout by the lake.
Right at the center ofGreensboro is is Caspian Lake,
which is this beautiful glaciallike.
They'll come up for a three dayintensive that includes farm
tours, cave tours, as well ashours of lectures that discuss,
(30:54):
you know, things like milkcomposition, talking about what
happens to casein, you know, asit's getting snipped apart, what
, what?
The proteolysis, as you know,the impact of proteolysis as the
cheese ages in the vault.
We also do sensory evaluationworkshops, so it's a little more
intensive and geared towardsfolks within the industry.
Chef Massey (31:17):
Yeah, we're out at public events and as well, doing
education and the like andthat's amazing too, because I
mean there are there have beenfarms here that are closer to me
, or you know, I've gone withsome of the kitchen team and
we've made cheeses you know, andthere's just you know whether
you're going out and picking oryou're foraging.
When you get the privilege to gointo an operation like that,
(31:39):
you're like it's veryenlightening and there's such a
whole nother level ofappreciation that's gained yeah,
and it's a lot of informationto take it in, because science
you know, yeah, it's almostalchemy.
Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
I know when I was, when we weremaking cheeses, and you're
going through the equations andthe amounts and you know you're
cutting the curd and you're andthe beauty of like you know,
(32:02):
taking that cheese and pressingit into its form and you know,
not to mention the process ofthe aging or or rindwashing,
continually, and it's justunbelievable.
Sam Rheaume (32:13):
So yeah, it's months of like patient,
persistent work, which can feela little quotidian at times, but
when you get to enjoy thatcheese, at the end of the day
it's, you can tell it's worth it.
Chef Massey (32:27):
Right, exactly.
Sam Rheaume (32:28):
We another just going to give a quick shout out.
Another event that we'veinvested a lot in over the years
is the cheese monger invitation.
It's a very traditional.
Chef Massey (32:39):
Oh, very cool.
Sam Rheaume (32:40):
You know, with that .
Chef Massey (32:40):
Yeah.
Sam Rheaume (32:45):
It's down in New York, run by a very close friend
of you know, andy and Matteo,and so everyone who works here
out of Moscow it's.
He's done a lot for the culturewithin the American artisanal
cheese movement to edify thecheese monger which you know.
They're the last person betweenyou know us and the like happy
(33:10):
cheese lover who's buying awedge of fabric cloth bound for
maybe the first time, right.
And they're the ones who whoare the real storytellers and
educators in our industry andthey do a lot to like bring you
know the general public on board.
One you know, one mouth at atime, yeah, so we get the
(33:34):
privilege to like go down thereduring that event and
participate with other otherproducers who are peers, and we
have a very sort of familialapproach to other makers in this
space, in our industry, in thiscountry, yeah, where it's like
a rising tide lifts all boats,and so we, we all get in there
together and we get a lot offace time with, like the best
(33:56):
and brightest of the of themonger.
The mongers that are out there.
They come from all over toparticipate in this event and
compete to be the cheese mongerof the year.
Chef Massey (34:06):
And that's amazing too.
You know it's funny at.
My next door neighbor is MattRubner.
Owns Rubner's cheese mongers inGreat Barrington.
So you know going in there andseeing what Matt does in his
team he really celebrates thebeauty of cheese from everywhere
and it's inspiring.
Sam Rheaume (34:26):
So and the the breadth.
And Rubner's is great, by theway.
They're.
They're good pals and it reallydoes behoove a cheese shop to
like engage with the breadth ofnot just what like we produce or
even what's produced within theUnited States, but, like
there's so much tremendousinteresting cheese, and to be
(34:51):
able to taste it in settingslike that where they're getting
it with enough shelf life andthey know how to care for that
cheese and allow it to, sort of,you know, live its fullest life
after it leaves the caves.
That takes a lot of skill andit takes a lot of passion.
So we appreciate everyone inthe industry who is, who is
(35:14):
who's taking care of the cheeseand really like embracing the
breadth, and there is a lot ofdifferent cheese there.
Chef Massey (35:20):
So it's unbelievable.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, Sam, I really do.
You know I appreciate your time.
I thank you for, you know,jumping in on this episode, Chef
Sense, and really sharing whatI feel as an example to other
cheese makers.
It's so inspiring to take whatyou all are gifted at doing and
(35:43):
go.
It's my job now to take thatbaton that you've handed me and
make a memory that someonehopefully never forgets on the
plate.
Sam Rheaume (35:51):
So Well, I, speaking from my own experience
I know the experience of a lotof people who have been here for
a long time it makes you feelproud to see something you spent
so much time and effort on, Getthat extra level of veneration
(36:12):
in a restaurant and to findunique angles at like
approaching the cheese in a waythat we might not be thinking of
and, given our context, youknow we're in the weeds with
very microscopic details.
Sometimes you forget to backout and kind of appreciate a
gestalt of mixing the cheesewith a new flavor or or treating
(36:34):
it in a new way.
So much much depreciation toall the chefs out there who are,
who are using our cheeses, andto you in particular, chef for,
for thinking to feature us andhaving oh absolutely On the air.
Chef Massey (36:46):
Yeah, it's been great.
You know, going to your websiteis the best way to, you know,
connect with you guys.
Sam Rheaume (36:52):
Yes, indeed, Jasper Hill Farm dot com.
Or you can follow us onInstagram and talk to me
personally, probably.
Chef Massey (37:00):
Yeah.
Sam Rheaume (37:03):
We're very customer oriented.
You know we do sell a littlebit of cheese online, but we are
more than happy to field.
We get questions all the timevia email or over the phone from
people who just happened topick up a harbison at a cheese
shop and and they are wonderingabout what kind of wood is on
the outside or why there mightbe a little bit of blue, green
(37:27):
penicillin mold on the on thebark, which is totally normal.
It's totally normal, but we arehappy to entertain those
questions and you can certainlylearn a lot more about all of
our cheeses.
I feel like we only scratch thesurface here and yeah, and they
updated on what's coming out.
Chef Massey (37:48):
You know, go to the website, learn more.
They've got profiles, they'vegot pairings on there.
It's inspiring.
Stay connected with theseamazing people.
You know, and Sam, hopefullymaybe we can do another episode
with future stuff down the road.
Sam Rheaume (38:03):
Yeah Well, if we do it in person, I will.
I'll bring the cheese.
Chef Massey (38:06):
You know what I'll do I'll stop by King Arthur's
flower and then drop by.
How's that?
How's that?
Sam Rheaume (38:12):
I like that there you go.
We'll do it from the vaults.
Chef Massey (38:15):
There we go that sounds like that, sounds like a
memory maker, so nice oh yeah,yeah, right, right, that's
awesome.
Well, all right.
Well, you all take care, andthanks again.
Sam Rheaume (38:27):
Thank you.
Chef Massey (38:27):
Chef Massey.
Yeah, all right, everyone.
That is a wrap.
You can check us out if youlike that.
Subscribe Also the InstagramChef Massey.
Let's keep it simple, ChefMasseycom, have a good one.
Bye for now.
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