Making Your Own Cheese in Portland: Cows and Caves Optional

Portland may or may not be the DIY capital of the U.S., but the interest in do-it-yourself food crafting is definitely on the upswing here, in a state where school kids used to pick berries and beans during summer vacation and moms put up jar after jar of pickles, jam and canned fruit.

Today the ranks of local DIYers are growing—replacing lawn with veggies gardens, raising and even butchering backyard chickens, keeping backyard beehives, brewing beer and kombucha, and they’re mad about making cheese and other dairy products.

You can find cheese making classes for all skills levels in and around Portland, and find cheese making kits and supplies at specialty cheese stores, home goods stores like Mirador and Urban Farm Store, and at food co-ops and most New Seasons and Whole Foods stores.

What’s fueling the growing passion for making cheese? We spoke with three Portlanders active in the local cheese scene for their take on it.

Claudia Lucero, 37
Urban Cheesecraft

Claudia Lucero. Photo courtesy of Urban Cheesecraft

Place in Portland’s cheese scene: Sells cheese kits and supplies through her Urban Cheesecraft business and teaches cheesemaking classes
Day job: Director of Operations, Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls
Web site: http://urbancheesecraft.wordpress.com

Q. What led you to cheese?

A. It wasn’t farming! We always lived in apartments and I still do, but I was interested in cooking from a young age and my grandmother was a good scratch cook. My first experience with cheese was in high school, when I worked at an Indian restaurant and learned to make paneer. I was fascinated, but I didn’t make cheese again until a few years ago when I was experimenting with sauerkraut and kefir. It’s been a natural evolution for me, getting interested in local foods and joining a CSA. Then I stumbled upon some cheese making recipes and ordered supplies online after I had difficulty locating them here.

Q. So that must be the genesis of Urban Cheesecraft?

A. I knew from my own search for supplies that many cheese kits sold online cost over $100 and were designed for dairies rather than home cooks. My goal was to make a kit designed for someone who wanted to just give cheese making a try. The business took off after I took kits to a few local stores. Now we make four kits and have two new ones for feta and yogurt cheese in the works. Our kits are available locally at more than a dozen stores and online through Artfire.com. Most of our sales are wholesale, to grocery stores, and we’ve just signed on with Provista, a food distributor, for California and the Northwest. It’s a challenge to work full-time and run the business, too, but my partner, Jeff Norombaba, makes the kits and designs the labels.

Urban Cheesecraft's DIY kit. Photo: Heather Zinger

Q. Your cheese making classes—where do you teach?

A. I was selling my kits at the Montavilla Farmers Market when Steve Cohen from the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability came by my booth and asked if I’d like to teach cheese classes for the city’s Urban Growth Bounty program. I’ll be finishing up the first year of classes in the fall. I focus on the fresh cheeses you can make in one to 24 hours: mozzarella, ricotta, paneer, queso blanco and goat cheese. These classes are mostly a demonstration format, but in the fall I will also be teaching a more hands-on style of adult ed classes through Mt. Hood Community College at David Douglas High School.

Q. Who are the people taking your classes?

A. The students have been quite a mix—geeky engineers into the science of cheese making, wine makers and beer brewers, foodies and back-the-land DIY folks. I’m sort of a mix of all of these.

Meat and cheese platter from Foster & Dobbs. Photo: Heather Zinger

Q. What are some of your best cheese adventures, past or future?

A. I taught 30 first-graders how to make mozzarella. It worked great and they were so cute. It was neat to see them get what curds and whey are. As for a future cheese adventure, well, I’m Mexican so I would love to be funded to go to Spain, Mexico and South America to skill share—I’d teach what I know and learn what others can teach me.

Q. Got a favorite way to eat cheese?

A. I prefer a cheese platter, at home or at Foster & Dobbs or the Cheese Bar, where you can get a very affordable platter of Northwest cheeses.

David Bleckmann, 43
Joy of Cheesemaking

David Bleckmann. Photo courtesy Joy of Cheesemaking

Place in Portland’s cheese scene: Teaches cheese making classes and writes the Joy of Home Cheesemaking blog—The fun and science behind home cheesemaking
Day job: Software engineer
Web site: www.joyofcheesemaking.com

Q. How did you get interested in DIY cheese?

A. I call myself an obsessed home cheese maker. My wife surprised me with a cheese making class as a birthday present last year and I have not turned back since. I publish a web site, a blog, and a podcast on the subject and I am writing a book on home cheese making that focuses on the science behind the art of making cheese, something I feel is important to be successful. I really like the whole DIY thing. I used to make beer and then my wife bought me a book on charcuterie so we did that for a while. I call myself a food geek who’s a tech guy by day.

Q. How did you get started?

A. I took my first class from Mary Rosenblum, who’s been teaching cheese classes in the area for years, and I went down to OSU in Corvallis to take a three-day course for professional and home cheese makers in the Food Science Program.

Stirring curds at the OSU cheese making class. Photo courtesy of David Bleckmann

Q. How would you advise people to get started with DIY cheese?

A. I recommend buying a book such as Tim Smith’s Making Artisan Cheese and buying some ingredients to make a simple cheese like cream cheese. Once you’ve successfully made cream cheese and discovered how easy and delicious it is you’ll be hooked. Other good starter cheeses are ricotta, paneer and queso fresco.

Q. Where do you teach classes?

A. I’ve taught at Homebrew Exchange in North Portland, led a demo for the DIY cheese group at Foster & Dobbs and will begin teaching this summer at Sur La Table’s cooking school in the Pearl District. I post upcoming classes on my web site.

Q. Which cheeses do you make in your classes and which do you make at home?

A. I taught paneer, fromage blanc and yogurt (not a cheese, but fun to make) at my first class, but I will be teaching feta, Gouda and Cheddar this summer. Right now I have five cheeses ripening at home, including Camembert, Gouda, a creamy blue and a Stilton.

Cheese press (made in Oregon) available at the Homebrew Exchange
Photo: Heather Zinger

Q. For the cheeses that need aging, do you need a cave?

A. You don’t actually need a cave, but you do need to come up with an alternative. I use a wine fridge that I can keep at 55 degrees or a regular fridge with an external thermometer.

Q. Some cheese makers prefer raw milk, but farmers have various restrictions on selling raw milk in Oregon (they are restricted to a certain number of dairy animals (cow, goat or sheep), must sell at the location where animals are milked and cannot advertise, right?

A. Good raw milk makes better cheese, I think, but I usually teach classes with store-bought milk since it is easier for people getting started. Sunshine Dairy, Organic Valley and Alpenrose Organic are good brands. Ultra-pasteurized milk should be avoided and unfortunately it is not always labeled as such. The web site http://www.realmilk.com lists Oregon farmers who sell raw milk. I have not yet used goat milk, but look forward to using it.

Cheese with baguette, fruit chutney and beer at Cheese Bar.
Photo: Heather Zinger

Q. Got a favorite way to eat cheese?

A. Hunks warmed to room temperature with a whole grain baguette—makes me feel better about the nutrition balance— and a beer that pairs well with the cheese. I find that beer is much easier to pair with cheese than wine. Keeping it simple highlights the flavors of the cheese.

Q. Got a favorite cheese adventure, past or future?

A. Best cheese experience to date was having Dr. Lisbeth Goddik at OSU praise my first blue cheese in front of the cheese making class I was enrolled in. My cheese fantasy would be getting a Fulbright Scholarship to study cheese making in France….ha!

Tami Parr, 46
PNW Cheese

Tami Parr. Photo courtesy PNW Cheese

Place in Portland’s Cheese Scene: Author of Artisan Cheese of the Pacific Northwest (Countryman Press, 2009); freelance cheese writer

Past day job: Lawyer
Blog: http://pnwcheese.typepad.com

Q. How did you get so interested in cheese?

A. Although I grew up in the Northwest, I spent summers in Wisconsin where my aunt and uncle had a dairy farm. As I’ve written on my web site, cheese is a way of life so perhaps some of my passion about cheese came from there. Mostly I'm fascinated by cheese as a living, breathing food and a complex intersection of animal, land and craft. This is what I'm exploring when I think about, taste and write about cheese.

Q. You left behind a law career to write about cheese?

A. Well, I was unhappy with my job at the time and felt I needed a creative outlet, so I started my blog, Pacific Northwest Cheese Project, and set out to become an expert on artisan cheese making in the Northwest. The purpose of the blog is to inform people about what’s going on with cheese in the Northwest through a calendar of events and information on new books, new cheese makers and new stores. I also write about cheese for publications including MIX Magazine, Edible Portland and Northwest Palate.

Photo courtesy PNW Cheese

Q. How would you define an artisan cheese?

A. An artisan cheese is typically made by hand in small batches in a craft manner, but there is no legal definition. I used the term to mean attention to craft. Tillamook is not really an artistan cheese maker, but I included it in my book because it is so much a part of people’s memories in the Northwest and its roots are in small-scale production.

Q. Are you a cheese maker?

A. I’ve made simples cheese, like ricotta and chevre, but I find that the more I know the less confident I feel about making cheese well. I am content to write about cheese and eat it.

Q. What are some of your favorite Northwest cheeses?

A. There are so many, but a few that come to mind right now: Caldwell Crik Chevrette from Estrella Family Creamery, Ancient Heritage Adelle, Rivers Edge Chevre Sunset Bay, Tumalo Farms Classico and Rogue Creamery Rogue River Blue.

Easy Paneer kit at Homebrew Exchange (thermometer and skimmer not included).
Photo: Heather Zinger

Q. What’s next for you in the world of cheese?

A. I’m especially interested in the historical aspect. People have been making cheese for centuries and I want to learn more about its history in this country. Also on my list for the future is doing research in Italy, France and Britain.

Q. As a cheese town, how does Portland rate?

A. I like to think that we’re right up there. Steve Jones of Cheese Bar is nationally known. The Portland Farmers Market at PSU has eight artisan cheese makers, which is pretty remarkable, and we have so many places to buy good cheese locally. A few years ago I thought the economy might put a damper on cheese in the Northwest, but it didn’t happen. New cheese makers are starting up every year, producing more types of cheeses and continually improving quality.

Chevre. Photo courtesy of Urban Cheesecraft

Q. Is there a connection between the DIY movement and artisan cheese?

A. With the easy-to-make soft cheeses like ricotta and chevre people think, “I could make that.” They may already have an interest in food DIY. Cost-wise the ingredients are not cheap, so making cheese doesn’t necessarily save money, but there is satisfaction in making and eating a product you created yourself.