Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Blakesville Creamery's Goat Cheeses Rank Among World's Best”
“Blakesville Creamery's goat cheeses rank among world's best. And its techniques are no secret.”
Written by Joanna Kempinger Demski, Special to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
April 26, 2022
Transcript of article published by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. View the article and photo gallery here.
Goats are trending these days.
And great cheeses are always popular.
So it stands to reason that a creamery that specializes in artisanal goat cheese would be a real winner.
And that’s the case at Blakesville Creamery, a woman-owned and -operated farmstead creamery in Port Washington that’s been stacking up awards since it began cheesemaking a couple of years ago.
The creamery makes cheeses by hand on the approximately 200-acre Blakesville Dairy Farm, where 1,000 goats are raised and their milk is collected.
Veronica Pedraza, head cheesemaker and general manager of the creamery, said their most recent awards came at the 34th biennial World Championship Cheese Contest in Madison.
At that event, they won gold best in class for their St. Germain cheese, which is a hard goat cheese, and a silver for their Lindeline cheese, a soft-ripened goat cheese. They also won fifth place in the cheese curd category.
The contest was held in February, but the awards were given out April 17. The event is hosted by the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association.
Blakesville also won the 2022 Good Food Award in the cheese category in January. That award recognizes socially responsible U.S. food producers that create authentic and delicious foods.
HOW TO BE THE BIG CHEESE
What sets this creamery apart are Pedraza’s experience, the high-quality ingredients they use, and some tried and true cheesemaking technique.
“I have 15 years of experience making cheese. … I know what I’m doing,” she said. “I was brought on to design and build the creamery and to operate it. I have been part of process since 2017.
“I apprenticed with several cheesemakers outside of Wisconsin; I’ve made cheese in Vermont, upstate New York and Georgia. I’m from Miami, Florida, but I went to Beloit College. That’s how I ended up in Wisconsin,” she added.
She said another plus is that her cheeses are made by hand, not by machines, as is the case with many cheeses found today.
“We don’t have hardly any automation here. Our cheese isn’t mass produced. … There isn’t a robot making the cheese,” she said.
When it comes to ingredients; good milk is the most important.
“100% of the feed the goats eat is grown on the farm … I think that makes a difference. We’re using our own milk. Most cheeses get made from pooled milk; it’s milk that’s all mixed together.
“I also talk to Brent Foat, our farm manager, on a daily basis, and can therefore anticipate changes in the milk which would change the way the cheeses taste. We are interacting with the cheese on a regular basis,” she said.
AGE-OLD TECHNIQUES + INGREDIENTS
The ingredients used in cheeses have been around for ages, Pedraza said.
“There’s nothing new to be invented with cheese. It’s usually just milk, salt, rennet and cultures.”
But different techniques can make a difference.
One she uses on some cheeses is to wash them with beer. But this technique isn’t new, either.
“Washing cheese with beer goes back a long time. It most likely was invented by Trappist monks. They did it to remove undesirable mold growth. They used beer because they didn’t have potable water at the time. That was hundreds of years ago. The beer encourages another kind of mold growth that makes the cheese delicious.”
She said her Sunny Ridge cheese, a semi-firm goat cheese styled after the French cheese St. Nectaire, is washed with a sour beer made from Michigan peaches. The beer is Finer Points of Bad Behavior from Is/Was Brewing in Chicago.
Another Blakesville cheese, Afterglow, is washed in New Glarus Brewing's Belgian Red, brewed with Door County cherries.
Other cheeses Pedraza makes at the creamery with the help of three employees are fresh chevre and Lake Breeze and Lake Effect, both soft-ripened cheeses with bloomy rinds.
She doesn’t expect that number to increase soon.
“We have always had the same lineup of cheeses. We are working with the ones we know that are tried and true,” she said.
‘SO MANY CUTE BABY GOATS’
What’s the best part of making cheese?
“What I like most is that every day, I am seeing some tangible results for my labor.
“For me, making cheese is both instant and delayed gratification. It’s instant in that in the morning I have all this milk, and if I don’t do something with it, it will spoil. Then at the end of the day I have cheese.
“But it's delayed gratification in that you generally have to wait for those cheeses to ripen and taste good.”
Although working with her cheeses is her main focus, Pedraza does occasionally enjoy seeing the goats on the farm — especially the babies.
“Goats are really popular these days. I think in the world of livestock, goats are like dogs. They’re very curious and very smart.
“I have a couple favorites I like to see. The goats are kidding now, so there are so many cute baby goats,” she said.
The majority of the goats at the farm are Saanen goats, she said.
“They are all white. They are the Holstein cows of the goat world … they are the most prolific producers of milk in the goat world.”
While she might have some favorite baby goats at the farm, she doesn’t have a favorite cheese at the creamery.
“These cheeses are like my children. But our customer favorites are probably Afterglow and Lindeline,” she said.
She said the farm was originally a cow farm, but after the owner, Lynde Bradley Uihlein, bought it, she converted it to a goat farm. Uihlein, an heir in the Allen-Bradley family, is the founder of the left-of-center Brico Fund, also known as the Astor Street Foundation, and a supporter of environmental causes.
“The change was due to personal preference, but also because of some environmental considerations. In a nutshell, goats have less of an impact on the environment than cows do,” Pedraza said.
The farm has about a dozen staff members.
Blakesville cheeses are sold nationwide and are served at a number of area restaurants. They are also sold at specialty cheese shops, Outpost Natural Foods and on the Blakesville website, but the farm and dairy are not open to the public, Pedreza said.
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