About a month ago, Ashley made a comment at one of our blog articles (about freezing milk). She said she freezes her goat’s milk all the time to make cheese and has never had any problems with it. I contacted her to find out what kind of cheese she was making and I was pleasantly surprised to discover she makes a very wide variety. (It’s always fun to meet a master home cheese maker, filling her cave with all kinds of cheese and using our recipes.)
I thought her cheese making skills were enough to make her interesting, but when I went to her website, I discovered that she is gifted with an amazing variety of other skills.
Check out this list because she loves to barter and you can contact her at wrightashley73@gmail.com
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- She has a small family farm (37’s Miniature Farm) and she occasionally sells goats, bees, hatching eggs, compost/manure and Alpaca fiber.
- She plays the violin and the viola.
- She teaches kids and adults to play those instruments. (Wright String Studio)
- She tutors math.
- She shears and offers other animal care services.
- She spins and weaves baskets and rugs.
- She makes soap.
- She edits.
- She designs websites.
How many hours are there in a day?!!! There could be at least 10 separate articles about Ashley, but because we are all about cheese making, I asked her a few questions about that:
How did you get started making cheese?
It all started with goats. I fell in love with goats in high school, volunteering at the zoo, but the big goats freaked me out (the zoo had pygmies) and I didn’t know about Nigerian Dwarf goats at the time. So thought you couldn’t milk little goats, but didn’t see the point in just pet goats.
So, I temporarily gave up on the idea, until interning at a different zoo in college that did have NDGs. And I knew those were the goats for me. So, when I got my pasture fenced and my barn built several years later, I bought a couple goats.
My mom had recently started making cheese, and she encouraged me to try it, saying I could just use lemon juice. So, I did, and I’m sure I made a lot of mistakes – didn’t use enough milk, didn’t heat properly, wrong amount of lemon juice, etc, but in any case, I was unimpressed with the results. All I made was an unsatisfying mess.
I finally bit the bullet and tried using actual chevre culture from you guys, and haven’t looked back! I found success!
From there, I expanded to hard cheeses. A friend offered me an old freezer she didn’t need, so I sold my fish tank to make room for my new cheese cave.
I started with one of your starter sets, and first tried the cheddar recipe that came in the booklet. Those were some HARD cheeses!! They were so rock hard we used them as parmesan.
I then tried your gouda recipe, and found a little more success with that, and started exploring why my cheeses were so much different than I was expecting. I’ve made a number of changes in my cheese making since I started, and while I still don’t get cheese like what you buy at the store, mine are delicious and everyone seems to love them.
Do you still have your Nigerian Dwarfs?
When I started, I had NDGs, but soon realized I wasn’t getting enough milk. I was having to freeze milk in order to get enough to make cheese, and then I was using the bare minimum of 2 gallons (part of the reason my cheeses were turning out so hard).
I’d also been hearing a lot about kiko goats and how hardy they were, so after doing some more research decided to try one. They’re supposed to be a meat goat, but I’d read they were bred from feral dairy goats, so thought I’d try milking one. My kiko doe that I got is now my herd queen, and while her lactation isn’t as long as my alpine/saanen doe’s, and she doesn’t produce as much, she does give me over a gallon a day during peak production of really thick, high fat milk, much like a NDG’s.
My third doe, I bred here on the farm; she’s an even mix of Nigerian, kiko, alpine, and saanen. Medium sized with medium sized teats, her milk has more fat than the alpine/saanen. She doesn’t give as much, but I breed her in the spring so she gives me milk all winter long while my other two does are producing less milk. She’s also the doe my kids will get to learn to milk on if they ever want to.
What kinds of cheese have you made so far?
The cheese that really taught me how to make a better cheese was the drunken goat (Cabra al Vino). I was in love with the fact that it was supposed to be made with raw goat’s milk, but I didn’t like that it used 1/2 packages. The perfectionist part of me hated trying to split a package of culture in half. So now I kind of make a hybrid between the drunken goat and gouda. I use 1 package of mesophilic culture (usually; sometimes during the summer I use thermophilic), but I don’t really follow a recipe. When the kids were younger, I was having to time everything around when they needed to be nursed or changed or put down for a nap, and we called it the “2 under 2 cheese.”
Let’s see, other cheeses I have tried: did a wine-infused cheese once, but my pressing setup isn’t good for a lot of weight and that one required over 50 lbs if I remember correctly, so haven’t done that one again.
Tried 2 aged soft cheeses (belper knolle and caciocavallo) and either because of my technique or the fact that my first cheese cave grew mold like nobody’s business (or both), those both turned into nasty moldy messes that I never ate.
This year, I’ve been having fun taking what has become my usual “farmstead cheese” (I guess; I don’t follow a recipe so I have a hard time giving it a name) and adding things to it. My favorite for delectable snacking is my chocolate cheese (add dark chocolate chunks to the curds when you put them in the mold, then use the chocolate/pepper/coffee/olive oil rub), but that obviously isn’t good in many dishes requiring cheese. I’ve also added dried bell peppers (olive oil rub), dried garlic (also olive oil rub), peppers (pepper and olive oil rub), rosemary, sage, and thyme (made a rub for each of the herbs and applied accordingly).
This summer I was making a LOT of cheese, like, 3-5 cheeses a week, and I made so many they didn’t fit on the four boards I had for them. So I made 2 new shelves for the cheese cave, which are in use in one of the pictures of my cave. The other picture has the four original boards in use.
How did you learn?
I actually haven’t taken any classes. After buying the first kit, and not getting the cheeses I was wanting, I did a lot of research, read a LOT on the internet, tried to read a couple cheese making books but they were really too technical for me, and just tried different things. With 3 goats in milk now, I’m getting a lot of milk, so if I have a few cheeses that don’t turn out, I don’t fret. It frees me up to experiment a bit, because I’m not as afraid of screwing them up.
What are your goals for your cheese making?
My goal used to be to make all the cheese we needed, so we didn’t have to buy any cheese. But I’ve since come to accept that I just will not be making a decent cheddar, and having grown up on Tillamook cheddar, there are just some meals, like tacos and chili, that in my mind require cheddar. So we still buy the occasional cheese. But I’m able to keep us mostly in supply.
Over the summer, I wanted to fill up my cheese cave (that’s 36 cheeses!). I didn’t quite get there, but almost. I try to empty out my cheese cave each winter, which is definitely more fun than filling it. I was hoping to be pretty much done making cheese for the year, but my goats still produce more milk than we can drink, so I’ve been making cheese about once a week lately.
I enjoy serving my cheese at get-togethers and gifting it to family and friends, but I’ll never sell it. Besides all the red tape with selling dairy legally, I once tried to figure out how much I was spending (for feed) per gallon of milk produced. I stopped trying to figure it out when I was getting depressingly high figures like close to $20/gallon. There’s no way I could be comfortable with asking $60 for a wheel of cheese! Especially since every cheese is an experiment and I never know how it’s going to turn out. In fact, whenever I serve the cheese anywhere, I always cut it up first, so I can taste it without anyone realizing. That, and then I can make sure to remove any mold before serving.
So, I won’t be selling my cheese ever, but I enjoy making it and using the milk my goats produce. And I guess that’s my goal, now – to make the most from the milk produced on my farm, and be able to feed my family and friends yummy cheese.
Janis Dolphin says
While we’re on the subject of DIY and cheese caves, I have a question about excess humidity in a freezer with an external thermostat. It’s holding at a good temperature but the humidity is so high that my surface-ripened cheeses are aging too fast and developing slipping rinds. I’m wiping down the wire shelves where water condenses frequently and a have a tray of rice to absorb some excess but it’s not enough. Any other good ideas to get the humidity lower?l
Jeri Case says
That’s an interesting problem. Most folks have the opposite situation. Please email our technical advisor, Jim Wallace (jim@cheesemaking.com). I would forward your comment to him, but he likes to have the entire thread available in his emails.
Janis,
I had that problem with my old cheese cave, and it sounds like yours is the same as mine was. It was one of those in which the coolant goes through the shelving, and the wire shelves themselves cool the cave down. I tried a number of different things, from taking everything out and sanitizing and drying everything off, even had a chemical dehumidifier in there that I kept maintained.
Finally, the whole freezer died and I had to get a new cheese cave. That fixed the problem. My current cave is a newer model fridge/freezer combo (the freezer portion is very conveniently the perfect temperature for storing my milk in!) in which the cooling happens behind the food compartment. No more humidity problems for me! I also have wood boards on the wire shelves which help moderate the humidity, as does keeping the cave nice and full.
I hope that helps! Good luck!
What about freezing the milk? Is there a special consideration when thawing? Do you let thaw at room temperature? Is there any separation? Do you heat to thaw? Does it change the finished product? Inquiring minds want to know. Thanks!
Funny you should ask – we just posted an article in October about freezing milk – https://blog.cheesemaking.com/freezing-milk-for-cheese-making/.
Hello Jeri, I have made cheeses from fresh milk and frozen milk. Mostly I make aged bloomy rind cheeses. I have never noticed any difference between the two. I’ll make fresh milk when I want to skim cream off the top to make butter. Then, I add organic cow whipping cream to the milk. Makes a great bloomy rind.
Every day, when I’m done milking, I strain the milk through a gold coffee strainer into half gallon glass canning jars. I fill to the 7 cup line and put jar into freezer immediately. When I get 8 jars, I’ll defrost them in kitchen sink filled with cold water. Sometimes, I’ll use tepid water if I start a bit late. I fill the jars to the top with the day’s fresh milk.
I really think feeding goats with only organic feed,organic alfalfa, organic apples, pears and carrots makes a big difference in the quality of milk. The goats are in top shape, never vaccinated, and free-range all day eating acorns. The acorns and oak leaves affect the milk curds incredibly. I see a 25% increase in the amount of curds I get with the same quantity of milk. From 12 rounds of cheese for 8 gallons of milk in the summer, I’m now getting 15 rounds of cheese in the fall and winter! (One week, I got 15 rounds of cheese plus 4 small rounds of cheese.)
I read your article about the effects of freezing milk and, honestly, I don’t think all that science matters. In the end, you get good cheese IF you feed your goats organically and let them free-range. Also, I never ever use sanitizers or soap on anything that touches milk. I preserve the bacteria so they can do their work on aging milk. We love our bacteria here on the farm!
Happy Holidays,
Meibao
Margaret,
I don’t usually freeze milk anymore because I have enough big goats that I don’t need to anymore. However, when I did, I thawed in the fridge. Yes, some separation did occur. No, I did not heat to thaw. Milk, when it’s been frozen, does tend to be a bit funky after thawing. Not bad, just a little different. And I think using frozen milk contributed to my making my hard cheese. I did not, however, use a very scientific method and changed several factors more or less all at once, so I’m not certain which was most instrumental in my being able to make better cheese.
Long story short: yes, you can freeze milk and then make cheese. No, I don’t recommend it if you can avoid it.
P.S. I forgot to say how long it takes for milk to defrost. It sits in the water from 9 a.m. to 2;30 a.m. It’s not completely defrosted but I can shake out the frozen part into the pot and start heating the milk.
This was a wonderful article. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Ashley. I loved how she wasn’t afraid to try new ways to make cheese. That’s how to learn about cheese making! It was Trial and Error that were my teachers. I would also read the books to get a general idea of what to do, then just did it my way. My cheeses are excellent today. My family and friends (especially the ones from France) rave about them.
Instead of putting whey down the drain, I use it for soup stock, making bread, feeding pigs, and just drinking it. It’s full of protein and B vitamins.
I make a bloomy rind raw goat cheese with ash. After reading about Ashley making chocolate cheese, I think my next batch will have chipotle chile and organic coco powder in the middle…maybe coco nibs?…anything is possible. Oh, I also freeze my goat milk…I only have one goat so it takes a couple weeks to get enough milk to make a decent batch. Keep doing what you’re doing, Ashley! You’re an inspiration.
Thanks Meibao! For my chocolate cheese, I just use dark chocolate, usually 60-70% cacao. Ghiradelli makes some dark chocolate chips that are really easy to use, but I’ve also used chocolate bars that I’ve just broken into pieces. Then I use the rub that’s here on cheesemaking.com; I think it might be in the jack recipe? (I just have to look up “chocolate” on their recipes every time I need to make a new batch.) I usually put the whey in the compost now, but have also used it to make bread, or if I make a mistake and use too much milk in making cheese and don’t have enough left for making breakfast the next morning, we’ve also used it in pancakes and waffles and such. Thanks for the comment!
Thank you for your reply and directions on how you make your chocolate cheese. I’m starting my cheese tomorrow. It’s a three day process. I’ve been making bloomy rind cheeses with ash in the middle. I thought I would try powdered chipotle chile and cocoa powder…same application procedure. I’ll age it for a week until the molds bloom. Will let you know in a couple weeks how it turned out. Do you mix the chocolate bites into the cheese and then mold them? I saw online how someone made chevre, rolled it into small balls, froze the balls, then dipped them in melted chocolate. Interesting. Maybe it was on New England Cheese website…forgot. Anyway, how does the chocolate pair with the cheese?
Have you ever made sourdough with whey? It makes a great sourdough.
Smiles,
Meibao
For those of you following this thread, we did an interview with Meibao in 2017 – https://blog.cheesemaking.com/meibao-nee-california/. We also posted a recipe for the making chocolate covered chevre truffles which Meibao mentions – https://blog.cheesemaking.com/chevre-truffles-with-goat-cheese-lady/.
Hi Jeri! Thank you for sending me that link…I have not read that for quite a while. Interestingly enough, it was interesting to see how much things have changed. I have two goats, make the same cheese in rounds, bake a completely different fermented bread…rye, sunflower, flax, and caraway seeds, and I ferment it 3 whole days before baking it on the 4th day. It’s dense, sour, and sooooo good and healthy. I’ll let you know how the chipotle/chocolate cheese tastes. Thanks, also, for reminding me where I saw the cheese truffle. Sorry I didn’t remember, but that was a super idea. I might make that, too. Good hearing from you. All the best in this holiday season.
Meibao
P.S. I have a website that is not online. If you’d like to see it, it’s http://www.folktalecountryfarm.weebly.com I’m not ready for it to go online…still tweaking it.
Meibao,
I just layer the chocolate pieces in with the curd when I’m putting it in the mold. But I don’t do it with chevre; I can’t eat chevre fast enough to go through it all, usually! So I make mostly hard aged cheeses. And yes, if I think to save a bit of whey when I make cheese, I mostly use it in my whole wheat sourdough bread. Yum!!
I’ll be interested to hear how the chili and cocoa powder work in your chevre!
Ashley
I like your cheese press and cave. As an avid DIYer I am all in favor of doing things the simple way using one’s imagination. Your cave is a bit larger than mine but then, I don’t have my own milking animals.
Bob,
Thanks for the comment! I’m with you; I prefer to DIY if I can, too.
Ashley