Our Raw Goat Cheese Process

From milk to a slab of cheese on your charcuterie board, Swiss Villa’s raw goat cheese is created by Amish farmers in Lancaster. Ready to dig into the process? Let’s go…

1. Culturing The Milk. We culture the milk from our grass-fed goats. Once the milk reaches 90 degrees, we add cheese culture to begin the fermentation process.
2. Adding The Rennet. Now, it’s time to bring in the rennet. After this is added to our milk, the cheese will begin to coagulate, a process that structures cheese into a custard form. 
3. Cutting The Curd! Now that the milk is solidified, we use curd knives to cut the curd into ¼ inch size cubes. 
4. Gently Cooking The Curd. Remember how the cheese was at 90 degrees? At this point, we raise the temperature by two degrees every five minutes until it reaches 102 degrees. Wondering how much curds we come out with? If we started with 1,000 pounds of milk, we’d end up with 100 pounds of cheese curds. Yup, that’s about a ten percent return. 
5. Draining The Whey: After the whey has been fully drained from the curds, it makes a wonderful fertilizer for neighboring pastures and farmland…another hidden benefit of our raw goat cheese-making process. 
6. Cheddaring The Curds: Once the curds knit together in the vat, we cut large slabs of cheese. Then, as the cheese releases more whey, we rotate and stack each slab every fifteen minutes. This is called the cheddaring process, allowing the cheese to consolidate and become firm. 
7. Aging The Cheese: Because our cheese is raw it must be aged for at least 60 days. After 60 days, we can cut chunks of excellent cheese. Drumroll, please! Our raw goat cheese has found its way from raw milk to chunks of delicious goodness ready to top a pasta dish or eat alone.