* THIS WORKSHOP IS CURRENTLY FULL-

PLEASE FILL OUT A FORM BELOW TO BE PUT ON THE WAITING LIST. WE MAY HAVE SPOTS OPEN UP. *

SOUR MILK SCHOOL

A five day natural cheesemaking workshop involving the fermentation of raw milk

taught by Trevor Warmedahl JAN 25-29 2023

Propagating raw milk microbes to make your own cheese

Trevor Warmedahl is a nomadic cheesemaker, educator, and dairy researcher, teaching natural milk fermentation methods. He is offering the first season of the Sour Milk School here in California. We are honored and SO excited to be hosting him at Poco Farm January 25-29.

The Sour Milk School is a mobile educational project that collaborates with fermenters, chefs, dairy farmers, communities, and cheesemakers to offer workshops in which methods of natural cheesemaking and milk fermentation are shared. The focus is on working with fresh raw milk, its microbial ecology healthy and intact. By cultivating the microbes indigenous to this milk, starter cultures can be cultivated to make essentially any style of cheese. Milk for these demonstrations will be from a local producer of cow milk and our Poco Farm goats, and all milk will start to transform into cheese while still warm from the animal. Over 5 days, students will learn to make a clabber starter culture, yogurt, and 6 cheeses: Feta, Mozzarella, Fresh Lactic (such as fresh goat cheese aka chèvre), Aged Lactic with Geotrichum rind in glass jar, Caciocavallo (an aged version of Mozzarella), and Ricotta.

The teaching of the workshop will be a combination of approaches to learning, to convey the information in multiple ways.

BASICS OF CHEESE SCIENCE AND MILK MICROBES Students will build a base knowledge about the constituents of milk, how microbes ferment milk, and what coagulation is. We focus on sourcing the highest quality, fresh raw milk. Great cheese starts on the farm.

MAKING NATURAL STARTERS The crux of the course is sharing methods of making and maintaining starter cultures from the microbes indigenous to healthy raw milk. Essentially any style of cheese can be made with these.

MAKING FRESH AND RIPENED CHEESES The workshops are geared towards those who want to make cheese in their homes, on farms, or in restaurants. The methods demonstrated empower students to make and age cheese without a lot of expensive equipment.

1. Intellectual presentation - Trevor will share how he learned about these methods, explain the basic chemistry and microbiology, and how these processes can be carried out on a home or kitchen scale. This may include projected visuals and photographs, along with seminar style talks.

2. Hands on demonstration - Students will watch the cheeses being made, and get to put their hands in the whey, onto the curd. The exact cheeses and dairy foods made may vary, depending on the type of milk available, and climate in which the course takes place.

3. Sensory evaluation - Tasting and smelling every step of the process, learning to identify the traits that tell you things are going right or wrong. This experiential learning is crucial, and empowers students to reclaim and trust their senses, and teaches the value of exposure to novel sensory experiences.

Trevor has created this workshop after a decade spent as an artisan cheesemaker in the USA, working for small and large producers, while also living on farms and caring for livestock. From 2019 until the present he has been traveling and documenting the dairying, grazing, and cheesemaking practices of pastoral people in various countries including Mongolia, Tibet, Italy, Austria, Spain, Albania, Slovenia, and Georgia. He also spent a year in between travels to work with various types of grazing systems on farms in Vermont and California. To learn more about his work, click here.

What Trevor hopes to instill in students is that cheesemaking and other fermentations are art as well as science, and that cheeses have methods rather than recipes. Once you understand the method, you tweak the make to create a custom process that works for your milk and desired goal, and adjust this process day to day as the variables shift. Good cheese milk tends to vary seasonally, and it is the task of the maker to predict these trends and find ways to compensate.

Underneath the science and concrete methods is a philosophy of how we choose to interact with microbes, and view our relationship with food, dairy livestock, and landscapes. This is inspired by a paradigm shift happening in microbiology and health, as it is revealed that microbial life is the basis of human health, as well as that of soils and ecosystems. By working with and propagating milk microbes, by observing and steering the succession of organisms in and on cheeses, we are learning to reclaim a relationship of participation, moving away from the futile attempt to control or eradicate microbes.

*A disclaimer: In this workshop, Trevor will discuss the slaughtering and butchering of young livestock, and the use of their stomachs to make rennet. He will use animal rennet to make cheese, and possibly discuss or demonstrate the use of plant coagulants such as thistle. It is a major part of his philosophy that there is no vegetarian milk or cheese. If you are uncomfortable with these topics, maybe this workshop is not for you.

LOGISTICAL DETAILS:* THIS WORKSHOP IS CURRENTLY FULL. PLEASE FILL OUT A REGISTRATION FORM BELOW TO BE PUT ON THE WAITING LIST, as we may have space open up in the future, and we can refer you to Trevor’s other classes as well. *The course will take place over five days, Wednesday January 25th- Sunday January 29th 2023, 10 am to 5:30 pm with a one hour lunch break and brief afternoon tea break. The cost per person is $700 and includes a daily (delicious, organic/pastured, locally-sourced, omnivorous) lunch, as well as coffee, tea and snacks. Scholarships for farmers and chefs are available (thank you Ojai Community Farmers’ Market , Slow Food Ventura County and the Ventura Chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation) and can be applied for at the sign-up page linked below. Depending on level of interest, we may have a celebratory goat roast with cheese and wine on Sunday evening as well, if folks are able to stick around after class. We may also offer an optional butchering demonstration outside of class hours on Day 3, depending on interest level. Camping space on the farm and recommendations for local accommodations are available upon request.