Say cheese — Artisan, farmstead cheesemakers offer traditional, unusual
While the store may be a bit hard to locate, artisan cheesemakers Tim Welsh and Pat Ford found it the perfect place to start their business.
Welsh and Ford, who used to own a software company, wanted to do something different. In reading Steven Jenkins' book, "Cheese Primer" (Workman Publishing Co., $16.95), the pair discovered a renaissance in artisan cheesemaking had taken the country by storm.
According to the American Cheese Society, artisan cheese is produced in small batches, minding cheesemaking traditions with little use of machinery.
Realizing this market was largely unexplored in Utah, Welsh and Ford decided to learn to make cheese.
"I wanted to create something I could touch at the end of the day and feel passionate about," Welsh said. "The satisfaction comes from making something that can be tasted."
The self-proclaimed "foodies" sold their company and took six months to craft a business plan. They visited other cheese factories, learned the science of cheesemaking and designed a facility that would optimize cost and mechanical productivity.
Working with Gossner Dairy, the pair chose a small West Ogden farm as their milk supplier. The farm's herd is comprised of Jersey and Holstein cows that Ford said are humanely treated and aren't given growth hormones. "They (the farmers) practically know the cows by name," he said.
Their first batch of cheese, which they called Promontory cheddar, was made in September of 2005. They still have two 20-pound wheels of it in their cold-storage room — saved for a special occasion.
Beehive's cheesemaking process begins in a kitchen lined with a maze of stainless steel pipes leading to a stainless steel tub about the size of a Mini Cooper. During a visit by the Deseret Morning News, Welsh and Ford were making cheddar, which is why they were playing Celtic music in the background.
While it hasn't been proved that cheese is affected by the music, it inspires the makers, Welsh said.
The tub is filled with 4,500 pounds of pasteurized milk (since the cheese is measured in pounds, the milk is measured that way, too) and heated.
Once the milk reaches 88 degrees, "the perfect temperature for the bacterium," Welsh says, he pours a bucket filled with trillions of microscopic lactic-acid bacterium into the tub, which will chemically alter the milk into curds and whey.
"There is something about cheese that is so mysterious," Welsh said. "It's magical — it just transforms."
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