Newsletters: July - August 2007
Sweet Grass Dairy, where happy goats produce delightful cheese
By Sandy Beck
Jeremy Little was completing his major in psychology at FSU when his gourmet heart heard the culinary arts calling. Unable to fork up tuition for a second degree, he apprenticed as a chef. One evening, when someone got his goat at a restaurant in Atlanta, he realized he was ripe for another change. Jeremy's in-laws, Al and Desiree Wehner, made him an offer. "Come work for us." And he did.
The Wehners, who owned the 340-acre Green Hill Dairy farm in Quitman as well as a smaller goat farm, Sweet Grass Dairy in Thomasville, are interesting people with unconventional ideas.
"I'm a grass farmer, not a dairy farmer," Al Wehner likes to say. Their rotationally-grazed cows-unsullied by growth hormones, antibiotics or stimulants-munch on rich grasses. These are happy cows.
In 2003, Jeremy and his wife Jessica moved to Sweet Grass. Their vision was to start a farmstead cheese operation, producing handcrafted fresh, soft-ripened and naturally-aged goat and cow cheeses in a healthful, humane environment. Jeremy apprenticed with Desiree to learn cheese making while Jessica focused on marketing and sales.
In 2005, Jeremy and Jessica bought the Sweet Grass Dairy. They expanded the cheese making building and experimented with new varieties. Today, they make cheese from both goat's milk and cow's milk, which they buy from the Wehners. In keeping with the Green Hill philosophy, they use no additives or preservatives and the goats get to be goats.
The day I visited, Jeremy slipped plastic booties over my shoes, walked me through the different production rooms and patiently introduced me to Cheese Making 101.
He begins by adding a starter culture of friendly bacteria to the milk that produces lactic acids and causes it to sour. Then he adds a coagulant that reacts with the acidity and separates the liquid whey from the solid curd, which becomes the cheese. He adds salt and moves large hunks to shelves in walk-in coolers for the aging process. To vary the flavor, he varies the timing, temperature, humidity and cultures. A dry environment produces dry cheese; add a little humidity and you get a soft cheese.
The Littles also add whopping dollops of creativity to produce such delights as the heart-shaped Lumiere, a semi-ripened goat's milk cheese coated and layered with French grapevine ash, and the Georgia Pecan Chevre, crusted with local Georgia pecans. One of my favorites is Hopeful Tomme, their cultured cow and goat milk cheese.
They now sell to distributors throughout the country as well as to farmer's markets, restaurants, wine & cheese shops and food coops, including New Leaf Market.
Sweet Grass is proud of being a family operation where employees receive a fair wage and respect and feel good about their work. In addition to the Wehner and Little families, I also met Feliciano, who assists in cheese production, and his son Martin, who manages the goats. Karen and her daughter-in-law Allicia work in the office and store.
When Jeremy excused himself to attend to a time-sensitive step in the cheese making process, I visited the goats-250 of them wandering wherever they please over 140 acres of native grasses and woodlands. When the herd quickly moved away from me, I decided to imitate Jane Goodall and sat down quietly in the pasture, taking pictures. The bravest goat slowly approached to sniff me, nibbled my t-shirt and then uttered a little goat moan while I rubbed her ears. The rest soon joined us. I was in goat heaven.
Billy goat heaven, that is. At Sweet Grass Dairy, only three billy goats live with 170 nannies and their babies. Every year or two they replace the males with three new ones so as not to inbreed the herd. All the nannies mosey over to the milking parlor twice a day to get their grain treats. Each goat produces three quarters of a gallon of milk every day.
On the way home, I stopped at the New Leaf Market for some Hopeful Tomme, Holly Springs raw goat's cheese-nutty and sweet-and a lovely bottle of organic LaRocca Vineyards Chardonnay which I served for dinner with cold apple slices, Sami's Bakery Millet & Flax chips and some mango chutney . . . grateful that Jeremy Little decided to analyze cheese rather than people.
