Pineland Farms Creamery – Online Walking Tour

Our mission at Pineland Farms is to re-engage our community with their food sources. We designed our Dairy Farm and Creamery to allow you an up-close look. We invite you to visit to take in the sights, sounds, and flavors of the cheese-making experience!

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1. It All Starts with Happy Cows

Comfortable, healthy, robust cows make the best milk. In the spring, summer, and fall, our cows happily graze the Farm's grassy pastures; in winter, they're fed Farm-grown hay mixed with hand-selected grain rations. Artificial growth hormones are strictly forbidden.

Our family of Holsteins is internationally known as one of the premier small breeding herds in the United States and tracks its lineage to the first animals imported to the country from Europe in the 1800s.

2. From Dairy to Creamery - Only a Stone's Throw

Milk fresh from the Holsteins is delivered a very short distance from the Dairy Barns to the Creamery.

3. Holding Tank & Pasteurization Room

Holding tanks keep up to three thousand gallons of milk frosty cold until cheese is ready to be made. Then, a high-temperature short-time (HTST) pasteurizing system heats the milk very quickly to 161° F, killing off any "bad" bacteria. Pasteurized milk then flows into two cheese vats in the adjacent room. The entire process is computer monitored and controlled.

4. Production Room: Cheese Vats

Our vats hold several thousand gallons of milk. Two vats hold one thousand gallons of milk each. This is where personal craftsmanship comes in. Our cheese maker adds the right cultures ("good" bacteria) to the warm milk; this causes the milk to thicken and gel into curd. Using wire knives called "harps," he cuts through the curd to allow the liquid whey to separate from the solid curd. The whey drains into a storage tank, and the curd become firmer as it cooks and more whey separates out. When it has reached just the right consistency, the curd and remaining whey are pumped to the next vat, called a "finishing table."

5. Production Room: Finishing Table & Pressing Machine

The last of the whey continues to drain out, leaving only loosely cut curd that begins to stick together. The curd is cut into long slabs and turned over and stacked on top of each other to press out some of the last of the whey. One thousand pounds of curd are extracted from every one thousand gallons (8,500 pounds) of milk.

Once the curd slabs are fully drained, they are run through a mill that grinds them into small pieces. We add salt and stir it into the curd, which extracts even more whey. The curd, almost as dry as it can get, is then scooped into metal boxes, called "hoops" that are lined with cheesecloth.

The hoops are stacked and pressed overnight, which squeezes out the very last of the whey. This creates 850 pounds of cheese ready to be packed and aged in the cooler.

6. Brine Room

To make cheese varieties such as Swiss or Feta, we soak the curd in tanks of salt water until it absorbs the right amount of salt.

7. Aging Room (Cooler)

To develop flavor, most varieties of cheese need to age. Usually, the older the cheese, the sharper (stronger) the flavor. Monterey Jack is a mild cheese aged for just two months; our sharpest cheddar may be aged for three years or more.

8. Packaging Room

Here, the large blocks from the cooler are cut into smaller sizes and packaged for sale.