Hi everyone, I'm a cheese maker in Southern Kentucky. I work at Kenny's Farmhouse Cheese and am one of 4 folks that work in the kitchen making cheese. We use just-milked fresh milk in 300 gallon batches, and make about 240-250 pounds of cheese per batch. Kenny owns his own milking herd which are very well cared for and pastured, and they're 1st milking each day goes straight into the cheese making tank and we take it from there. We usually make 8 batches of cheese per week. My wife and I work 5 shifts a week (1 shift = 1 batch of cheese), and Kenny and his family make the remaining 3 batches using the second milking in the evening. I've worked here since April and am really enjoying learning the art and craft of artisan cheesemaking. Kenny's a super-energetic, experimental guy, and we're always trying new cheeses. We currently have unpeirced blue Gouda, coffee Cheddar, and St. Paulin experiments in progress, on top of our 21 'regular' types of cheese. Our website is at
http://www.kennyscheese.com if you want to see our full line of cheeses. No, Kenny doesn't pay me to market his cheese on the internet, so enough promotion!
I've got lots of questions and ideas about how my current job works and could be improved. We're looking to expand in the next year or two, which I think will involve doubling the kitchen, possibly to have 2 cheese vats going at the same time (and two groups of people working on them). This last year (2010) I think we produced about 100,000 pounds of cheese.
Anyway, I'm glad to have found this forum, I'm sure I'll learn a lot! Kenny has a great set-up, but I'm always looking to improve. And anything I can do in this upcoming expansion that would make my life easier would be great!
