The Sheep Cheese Internship
After a phone call with a saleslady from the sheep creamery, it was settled that a short internship of three days would suit all parties the best. In fact, the days that I had free from my time at the bakery were exactly the days they suggested I come in. It was a perfect fit.
Work at the creamery starts punctually at 6 AM. There is a train that arrives at 5:55 AM in a neighboring town where the master cheesemaker agrees to pick me up. As we two will be the only people in the creamery each morning, our slight tardiness will go unnoticed.
I make my 5:30 AM train and am the only one disembarking at this village’s stop. I see a cigarette blinking by the exit and head that way. I introduce myself formally to the cheesemaker, and we head over to his car.
Even though he is most likely in his forties, he had likely had a stroke at some point. It takes me a bit longer to get accustomed to the speech patterns, but he is clearly friendly and a bit amused that he will be training an American. We arrive at the creamery and head in.
We sanitarily remove our shoes before entering a locker room. I have brought white pants, which were purchased for my previous cheese internship, but am provided a different shirt, socks, rubber boots, slip on shoes, an apron, and a hairnet. We are set to enter the creamery.
Our assignment for the day is to make Sheep Gouda. We start this process by using frozen milk. I am reminded that lactation schedules for sheep are much shorter than that of goats or cows. Sheep will produce milk for six to eight months after lambing. This creamery lambs twice a year (early and late spring), which means during the summer they have an abundance of milk. Instead of overwhelming themselves in cheese production during the summer months, a portion of the milk is frozen to be used in the fall when production falls. Through trial and error, they have determined three months to be the longest frozen milk should be stored before the resulting cheese is negatively impacted.
We begin the day by dumping frozen milk into the vat where it will be pasteurized (and thawed in the process). He mentions offhandedly that there is typically a food stand that operates for lunch, but it is closed on Mondays. I had not brought a lunch…
During the process of making Gouda, we add water to the vat – approximately 20 percent by volume. This does not water-down the cheese, as the whole point of making cheese is to remove as much water from the milk as possible, leaving the fat and nutrients. The idea, I am explained, is to allow better movement of the bacteria and enzymes that need to do their thing in the milk. The extremely high fat content of sheep milk would otherwise be a barrier. The water we add will be washed out after the milk coagulates.
The process after adding the water is not at all different than than for cow or goat Gouda. We clean the make area and inoculate another vat of milk for tomorrow’s yogurt; it requires the evening to sour.
The end of the first day is at 3 PM. I do not have a ride back to the train, so I take the bicycle path (i.e., paved path) back to the first village. I am starving so I walk a couple of the streets looking for a bakery. I remember as I eventually find one that rural bakeries are often closed on Mondays…
Day Two begins with the similar hygienic changing of clothes. Our task is to take the Gouda out of their forms and transfer them to a brine. We also prep the vats for a round of fresh cheese (sour cream and quark [a.k.a., Fromage blanc or frais]).
We chat a bit about brine health and I am assigned to clean off the yeasts growing on the surface before submerging the Gouda wheels. He explains that finding yeast growing on the surface is a good sign, but one should try to skim it off regardless (no need to be extremely thorough). The yeast layer folds like brains and has a white color when gathered.
We break our day for lunch. I am told to simply mention to the staff that I am interning and I can get whatever I want on the menu. I grab some food and find a table. A bit later the cheesemaker arrives with his brown-bagged lunch. He sits at another table with workers from the farm. I flashback to middle school; I am unsure if I did something wrong or am being snubbed for some other reason. Feeling quite self-conscious, I finish up my lunch and head off to the barns to see the sheep.
I arrive back in the creamery, and we work on packaging up the yogurt from yesterday as well as the fresh cheese from the morning. I sign off again around 3 PM, knowing that I will not be asking if I can come back for another week.
Day Three begins like all the others. Our task for the day is to make Camembert. We make a lot of Camembert. Throughout our process, we inevitably make a mess. I am invited to grab the hose and spray down the room, which is oddly fulfilling work. I also take it upon myself to man the industrial dishwasher.
Later in the morning, two additional workers arrive. I introduce myself to both of them and receive nods in return. I have found it quite odd that society does not dictate the reciprocal giving of a first name here; too often I end up bluntly asking what I should call someone. Needless to say, I left that day without knowing their names.
To use me while I was there, I am asked to cut up wheels of cheese and package and label them for sale. When asked if I had ever cut up cheese before, I explain that I not only have volunteered at a national cheese event prepping displays, but I also have my own cutting equipment at home. It is then that they realize that I may have more experience in cheesemaking and processing than they had previously believed. Perhaps they thought that I simply learned a lot from my goat cheese internship.
The day ended oddly as the cheesemaker had been pulled into a variety of conversations within the hierarchy of the farm. It was after 4 PM when I finally caught him and said that I was taking off, thanking him for the internship. He asks me to wait.
He comes back with a bag of cheese: half wheels, quarter wheels, and small containers of various fresh cheeses. I can only assumed that I had impressed him (or he felt sorry for making me eat alone the previous day).
We part ways with the promise to meet up again in November to make sheep cheddar, one cheese he has not yet attempted to make. [Editorial note: this never came to fruition as the farm was shortly thereafter consumed with a cheese recall, which was unpleasant for everyone involved.]
The next Monday, I went to a chain grocery store in Erfurt that touted a ‘local cheese’ section. There I saw cheese from two different local creameries: one goat and one sheep – both of my cheesemaking internships!
