Farm Profile: Jasper Hill Farm
Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro, Vermont is an artisanal cheesemaking operation and working farm with a herd of 40 plus registered Ayrshire cows and close to 300 acres of land. Brothers Mateo and Andy Kehler are farmers and cheesemakers who partner with other cheesemakers and farmers to provide aging, sales, marketing, and distribution. The farmers can tend to their cows and make milk, Jasper Hill Farm can do the rest. Their business plan, or mission, is to help preserve farm culture while also revolutionizing it.
Their commitment led them to build a 22,000 square foot cheese-aging facility with seven underground cellars and climate-controlled environments. The project, or concrete cave, cost an estimated $3 million.
The farm’s signature cheeses are Constant Bliss and Bayley Hazen Blue.
Constant Bliss is made from fresh warm milk. The slow lactic fermentation that takes place overnight renders the milk yogurt-like by morning, when the curds are hand ladled into perforated shaping cups. The curd drains in the moulds for a couple of days before being turned out onto racks and being hand salted. Then it’s down to the cellar where over the next weeks they will really come to life, developing a living rind and beginning to ripen. Every piece is turned daily for the first two weeks, after which they are turned twice a week. The result is a cheese which hardly even resembles a Chaource. It is a slow ripened lactic curd. This is not a double or triple crème cheese as is sometimes thought. Seasonal variations in the milk result in variations on the surface and flavor of the cheese.
Bayley Hazen Blue is a natural rinded blue cheese. It is made with whole raw milk every other day, primarily with morning milk, which is lower in fat. Ayrshire milk is particularly well suited to the production of blue cheese because of its small fat globules, which are easily broken down during the aging process. The paste of a Bayley Hazen is drier than most blues and the penicillium roqueforti takes a back seat to an array of flavors that hint at nuts and grasses and in the odd batch, licorice. Though drier and crumblier than most blues, its texture reminds one of chocolate and butter. It is aged between 4 and 6 months. The farm developed this recipe by starting with a Devon Blue recipe, changing its shape, and altering the aging process to end up with a stable rind that will hold up under typical retail conditions.
Photo Alison Arnett.
