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Hello my name is David Bähler.
I am a cheesemaker of Swiss descent. In my family we have passed down our heritage since we came here 126 years ago, and still identify ourselves first as Swiss.

We have begun to produce for sale a unique traditional Swiss Alpine cheese, known as Berner Alpkäse. Of course, this name is a protected AOC and we cannot call ours such -we call it 'Oberlander-Käse'

Berner Alpkäse is a hard cheese produced only during the summer months only in high mountain pastures of the Alps of the Swiss Canton of Bern. It is made according to ages-old traditions that have been passed down for thousands of years by the cattle herders who have lived in these mountains for countless generations (my own family traces back in these mountains 15 generations, before which time there are no records)

The Alpkäse has traditional production methods, and proper cheesemaking is based not on acid testing and so forth, but on the experience of the cheesemaker. So I can't give you any specifications on acidification rates other than that the starter culture should be 26 to 32 degrees SH (roughly 0.58-0.72 % TA).
The standards and procedures are extremely precise.

We shipped our culture in from Switzerland -Alpkäse is Whey-cultured, and the culture itself has been passed down in this manner for many years. As such, our culture has a rather unique blend of bacteria in it, including
Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. lactis
Streptococcus salivarius subsp. thermophilus
Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis
plus a few dozen (or hundred) others -it is said that no one knows exactly what is in this culture.

Welcome to the forum, David.

I look forward to hopefully having you share your insight and knowledge here.

-Boofer-

Welcome. Take a look at nicasiocheese.com to see what cheese I do. It's a Swiss-Italian style. Your cheese sounds fantastic!

Thanks,

I am getting ready for a trip to the Berner Oberland region of Switzerland -leaving Monday.
I'll be making Alpkäse during this time. But also won't have access to the internet

calico your operation looks impressive,

right now we are looking at doing a setup modelled after the tradition Berner Oberland Käserei. So our primary product would be the Alpkäse, then we would also produce another cheese known as Alp Mutschli -not a protected name like Berner Alpkäse, it is a softer cheese.
We are also considering doing an Emmentaler-style cheese (main difference would be the addition of p. shermanii) and a Sbrinz-Parmesan type cheese (main difference from the Alpkäse is the degree to which the curd is cut and cooked)

All of our cheese is produced in a copper vat, because the Swiss standard states that proper cheese can only be made in copper (it has a huge affect on flavor)

Our Oberlander-Käse will be aged for 4-6 months. In the Oberland, if the cheese is aged past 14 months it is known as Höbelkäse, and is very hard and very expensive with a very strong flavor.

The Alpkäse lacks the eyes of Emmentaler. In fact if eyes develop, it is considered to be a flaw, an error in pressing (the eyes will not form if the cheese is pressed long enough.) Alpkäse is pressed for 24 hours, and during this time is turned no less than 6 times

I wish I could take credit for the operation.  Alas, I am the Head Cheesemaker.  The Lafranchi family owns and operates it.  Great people!  They are wonderful to work for. 
I can't find a picture of their setup online, would you be able to direct me to a website?  I'm sure we'd all also love to see pictures of your copper vat when you have time to post them!

We are right now building a new "Käserei" for ourselves, a small log-type structure modeled after the traditional huts in the Oberland, and built with the same methods. When we get that all done, we can get good pictures of our setup, but until then we are kind of scattered and I'd be ashamed to put up pictures of what we are doing right now!

here is a photo of the vat

and here is a photo of the building as it stands right now. We're still looking for a name for our building too...

and here is a cheese

I love what you are doing and for keeping the traditions alive. That looks fantastic.

That is awesome! How much milk will your vat hold? Keep up the posts, they are great to see!

Incredible!
The vat of my dreams by the way. I wanted to get a mini version of it but the code says no copper allowed... grrr...

Is that a NYC law?
Often times if you try at all, they'll let you use copper.
Especially in our case, where we can make the point that our cheese can be faithfully be made only in copper.
The danger of copper lies in that milk will bond chemically with copper oxides, forming poisonous copper sulfates.
BUT
the cheesemaking process makes a natural barrier against this. The acidity of the whey will strip the copper to bare metal, and then coat it with protein, protecting it against oxidization. If you try to clean it with chemicals (like vinegar and salt), you will do so but the copper is left exposed to the air, and quickly tarnishes.

This vat is 40 gallons. We had hoped for a bigger one -60 gallons, but our measurements were off and it ended up smaller than we thought.

I'd highly recommend the folks we had make course, Caldwell Mountain Copper. great to work with and made us exactly what we wanted.

Hello David and welcome, looks great and congrats on keeping old techiques and cultures alive!

Quote from: Alpkäserei on July 15, 2012, 04:42:40 PM
Is that a NYC law?

I believe it is NY State law. I think the law assumes people's knowledge of using and treating it is not in a level that is reasonable to prevent toxicity in products that may find their way to the market. It's fine, I can do without it. I just think it's ironic that so much Swiss-made cheese is imported into this country which was made on these vats. The law also enables your cheese to be sold here so it's all kind of silly.

The import cheese is likely to be run under various lab tests to ensure chemical and microbial safty first?  (which most often is not required from local cheeses to such wide extent)

No, I think they just need a certificate of compliance with standards. Not sure. But imagine, if it was just the end-product that was tested, wouldn't you expect there would be no regulations for cheesemaking facilities at all?

Copper is not allowed in Kentucky.