A couple of weeks ago, Jamie made a comment at one of our Tidbits articles and we contacted him about an interview. We didn’t know at the time, how much he loves our company, but that quickly became apparent. If we had a paid spokesman, it would be him! His first response to our request for an interview was,
New England Cheesemaking is my one stop shop for all my supplies and training. I’ve taken your Cheesemaking 101 and 201 classes and in October I’m taking the Affinage class. I can’t wait to continue developing my skills.
Thank you, Jamie! It’s an honor to be appreciated by such an accomplished cheese maker.
How did you get started making cheese?
I actually got interested in cheese when I was 17 and lived as an exchange student in France. I lived with an amazing family for two years and fell in love with France and its cheeses. I lived on a farm in the country and would help the family milk cows and goats.
I am still very close to this family, having lost my mom, dad, brother and sister over the past decade to a variety of health and other issues. They have become my second family. France changed my life at 17 and now 30 years later, it still holds a special place in my heart.
Irony – at 17, I couldn’t stomach goat cheese. Now I love it.
I didn’t actually start making cheese until a year ago when some of my friends challenged me by saying “You have talked about your days in France every day for the last 20 plus years. Why don’t you do something French? Make some cheese.”
That challenge is when I decided to give it a try. I converted one of my EuroCave wine cellars into a cheese cellar and added a couple humidifiers to better control humidity, having learned temperature and humidity control are essential to good cheese.
I now have every shape and size mold New England Cheesemaking sells and have probably printed every recipe you have on your website.
Once you start making cheese, I have discovered it quickly becomes an addiction. My garage is presently filled with shelves full of cheese making supplies.
Every week I buy fresh milk from an Amish farm and every weekend I embark on a new cheese making adventure.
I’m grateful for New England Cheesemaking in getting me started on this amazing hobby (now passion). I still have a lot to learn but am thankful I have a source to go to for tools, recipes and advice!
I started a little website blog a few weeks ago to share some of my favorite French imports and cheese making stories. I am working with the VA Dept. of Agriculture to get the proper permitting to sell cheese.
So, for now, you can read about my cheese making adventures until that is approved. (https://thefrenchartisan.us/). I’m also working on setting up a YouTube channel where I will do some cheese making videos.
I share my cheeses with my friends and locally. Who knows? – maybe it will continue to grow. For now, I have been dubbed “the French artisan” by my friends who come to my house frequently to taste my creations and we will see where it goes. They tell me they come for the free food.
A Few Pics:
Sheep Milk Cheese
Goat Milk Cheese
Cow Milk Cheese
What else do you do when you’re not making cheese?
For a living, presently I’m Senior Director of Marketing for a US Government IT Services Provider called By Light.
By way of other hobbies besides cheese making, I SCUBA dive and am a private licensed pilot.
I also am an amateur chef. I’ve tried out for MasterChef several times. Next time I’ll be in – I’m sure of it. Lol.
Soon my cheesemaking ventures will surpass my spending in those two hobbies. Lol.
Do you have any advice for beginning cheese makers?
My advice for beginner Cheese Maker’s would definitely be to take all of Jim’s classes offered through N.E. Cheesemaking and to invest in the “Successful Cheesemaking” 2 book series by Merryl Winstein. I just got it last week and it’s amazing.
Both these resources are incredibly valuable and will save you from tossing pound after pound of cheese in the beginning as you embark on this amazing journey!
Jo says
Really very well done! I only started making cheese in July, so just lóve your tips! I’v Got a tip from someone to use salt and water to promote humidity – use eg. 50g salt, add 50ml water, fill another container with the same amount of water. Put together with cheese in container and it will create 100% humidity. Tried it, and it works! Now I don’t age cheese without it in the cheese container. Please carry on sharing your tips and tricks. Thank you for a great article. Kind Cheezy Regards
Jo
Jamie Ryer says
Thanks so much for the feedback. Really appreciate it. Good luck on wherever your cheese journey takes you. Always new adventures each time you make something!
Jo,
You’re absolutely right! I actually did an article about using salt in the cave in 2014 https://blog.cheesemaking.com/controlling-humidity-in-your-cheese-cave/
You’re link didn’t work for me. I love your articles!
Sorry, Margaret. I fixed it, so, refresh and try again.
Aaah Jeri, that’s so sad – I couldn’t find the webpage to read it 😩It says it no longer exists. I would have lóved to read it!
Thank you Jeri. Love your articles. Wish I knew about you sooner. Here in South Africa I battled to get supplies for a full year of research before I could finally find a supplier.
Kind Regards
Jo
Jo,
It’s still up. Can you try it again – https://blog.cheesemaking.com/controlling-humidity-in-your-cheese-cave/
Wonderful story! Wish I had done more cheese making seeing what you have accomplished!
For now travel is not in my cards so I took the second part of your advice and purchased,” invest in the “Successful Cheesemaking” 2 book series by Merryl Winstein” I’ve begun reading it and I have to say it was very good advice you gave. Lovin’ this book.
It is a great book. Only suggestion is they should have done the pictures in color. But still lots of useful info.
Tell me about the conversion of your wine cooler pros and cons if you have time. Things you wish you’d known when you started etc. Advice on types of devices? I have a small dorm room type refrigerator and I watched a YouTube on changing the temperature control adjustment to let it run warmer inside for cheese curing. Shaking in my boots about that idea but I may investigate more. I’d like to get a good cave set up so I can have better results. Thanks for any tips
Wine caves work great because you can adjust the temperature to what is ideal for cheese. 54-56 for most cheeses. The tough part is humidity. I purchased a couple $20 humidifiers from Amazon that allows me to program the percentage of humidity so I am able to maintain 85% minimum So it is ideal. The one thing you will not want to do is age blue cheeses with other cheeses in the same cellar. Blue proliferates everywhere. So I keep my blues on a separate cooler. Dorm room fridges are really good as well with those thermostat controller’s. They’re available online and a lot of cheese making supply places and they are pretty reliable. The important thing is you wanna turn your cheeses daily and you do want to make sure they get there so you do want to leave the door open for 10 minutes or so a couple times a week just so that the fresh air can get in and circulate. A lot of what populates the colonies on the rinds of cheese is what is in the air. So you don’t want to suffocate them they’ll just turn up all blue and moldy. I’ll share some of my notes with you when I get back from the aging class. I anticipate I will learn a lot more there I’ve had to wing it for most of my cheeses. They tend to be on the dryer side. I’ve since learned that putting them in plastic Tupperware bins and removing the lids every couple of days also works very well for maintaining the correct humidity. You can also buy little hygrometers on Amazon as well they’re like three or four dollars for a two pack they’re cheap and they last year probably five or six months but they’re not a huge expense and I usually keep one of those inside the plastic bins to make sure that the humidity stays around 85-95 percent Depending on the cheese you’re making. It’s really a lot of trial and error and I’m just now feeling like I’m starting to get the hang of it after about a year.
Thank you so much. I look forward to hearing what you learn in your class. You are very kind to share.
This is such an inspiring post! I look forward to being this deep in the cheesemaking realm one day.
It’s true how addicting cheesemaking can be. Just reading about each one of the cheeses you have in the works makes me want to drop everything and get home to make more cheese!
Great article, Jeri!
Thanks so much for your encouraging words. Yes it can be quite addicting. Thank goodness I’m not lactose intolerant. But that said, most cheeses that are aged are very low in lactose. A lot of people don’t know that. As cheeses ages the lactose is gradually converted to lactic acid which is more tolerable to many who are lactose intolerant. Sorry to digress but figured I’d put that out there.
I admire people like you..bravo and never give up.
I also been making cheese for a couple of years and enjoy the challenge.
Thanks so much for your feedback and encouraging words. Really appreciate it.
enjoy this autumn day and may God bless.
Thank you. To you as well.
Wow! I have serious cheese cave envy! And I may have locally sourced raw milk envy also. Very impressive.
Thanks so much.