Our Cheese
Pleasant Ridge Reserve, a farmstead artisan cheese, is made on our dairy farm here in southwest Wisconsin. Named after the land formation on which our farm sits, Pleasant Ridge Reserve is made in the tradition of Alpine cheeses like Gruyere and Beaufort. Like the Alpage versions of these cheeses, we only make Pleasant Ridge Reserve from May through October when our cows are eating fresh pasture. This grass-fed, raw milk produces flavors in the cheese that can't be replicated by "ordinary" milk.
When the pasture conditions are right, we make cheese seven days a week. We built our creamery right next to our barn, so once we're finished milking in the morning, the milk comes straight into the cheese vat, warm and fresh. We make one vat, or batch, of cheese a day.
In mid-summer, when the cows are at the peak of their production, a batch of cheese may yield up to 78, 10-lb wheels a day. Because we're very particular about using milk from only the best pasture conditions, the weather largely determines how many batches we can make in a year. When the pasture conditions aren't ideal, we sell the milk. Some years we're able to make more cheese than other years. This may seem like a luxury, but using only the ideal milk is the most important way we ensure the quality of our cheese.
We age all of our cheese in ripening rooms built into the creamery. Here, the cheeses are washed several times a week in a brine solution, which encourages the development of certain bacteria on the cheese rinds. These bacteria, along with the microflora indigenous to our raw milk, develop flavors in the cheese over time. As the cheeses age, their flavors become more complex and concentrated.
Each batch develops its flavors at a different pace, and an important part of our work in the ripening rooms is to taste each batch again and again to determine when they are ready to sell. We age a small percentage the cheese produced for over a year, and these "Extra Aged" batches of Pleasant Ridge Reserve are available only in the fall and early winter.
You can view a short video about how we make our Pleasant Ridge Reserve cheese.