page_title: Beecher's Handmade Cheese
section_title: Cheese and food manufacturing
hierarchical_section_title: Beecher's Handmade Cheese / Cheese and food manufacturing
caption_attribution_description: English: Cheese curd, Beecher's, Pike Place Market
context_page_description: Beecher's Handmade Cheese is an artisan cheesemaker and retail shop with locations in the Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington and New York City's Flatiron District. The company was founded by Kurt Beecher Dammeier in 2003 and opened in the Pike Place Market after Dammeier obtained a difficult to obtain storefront lease in the Market. Because Dammeier had never been a cheesemaker, he sought out the assistance of Brad Sinko, who helped run a family cheese-making business in Oregon. A second location was opened in 2011 in the Flatiron neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City.
  Unlike most artisan cheese makers, Beecher's mainly uses pasteurized milk and operates a high-volume modern production facility, with multiple farms supplying milk. When Beecher's encountered problems in guaranteeing the standard flavor of the milks they were using to make cheese, the company bought their own herds of dairy cattle and farms to ensure control of the cheese products from beginning to end. Beecher's uses various cheese cultures when mixing cheeses, so a cheddar cheese produced by Beecher's may use cultures not normally intended for cheddar cheese production.
context_section_description: The cheese factory is housed in a small, glass-walled facility in Seattle's Pike Place Market, on Pike Place between Stewart Street and Pine Street. The location includes a retail shop and a café that features cheese-based meals. Passers-by in the heavily touristed market can watch the cheese making process. Beecher's produces over 500,000 pounds (230,000 kg) of cheese annually. Their manufacturing facility now operates twenty-four hours a day to keep up with their demand. The New York facility is significantly larger than Seattle's and can produce over three tons of cheese a day.
  Sinko admits that the modern facility with large vats of cheese and milk processing would seem to contradict the word "Handmade" in the company name. According to him, all of the cheese is monitored, processed, and prepared by hand, but simply on a larger scale than most artisanal cheesemakers. Unlike most artisan cheeses, Beecher's is made largely with pasteurized milk. Dammeier believes that many people feel raw milk cheeses taste better due to renowned French cheeses, which were historically made of raw milk because the farms were unable to afford pasteurization. "I've probably tasted 150 different cheeses this year, and I'm convinced that raw milk doesn't create more flavor," he said, adding that his cheeses have a more consistent taste from not using raw milk. Nevertheless, Beecher's offers a raw milk version of their Flagship cheese. The cheeses they produce use no artificial ingredients or preservatives. Beecher's typically manufactures up to nine different varieties of cheeses each year, including a combination of their staple brands and various seasonal varieties.
  At the Beecher's facility, their process for cheese manufacturing is multi-staged. Thousands of gallons of milk are hose-fed from delivery trucks into the manufacturing area, where it is heated to complete the pasteurization of the milk. The heated milk is processed into a stainless steel trough, and the temperature further increased, while the first live cheese cultures and rennet, a coagulant, are added to the developing mixture. According to Amir Rosenblatt, a cheesemaker at Beecher's, the heating and cheese temperatures used in their cooking process are tightly controlled through the sustainable technology of steam power. "A variation of half a degree [in the pasteurization process] can change the flavor of the cheese," he said. Cheesemakers use stainless steel "rakes" to then gather the milk mixture, before allowing it to settle briefly, at which point the cheese is cut repeatedly by hand until it achieves a yogurt-like texture and substance. This process is repeated often, until a desired consistency is reached. The mixture is then drawn away to a new trough where most of the remaining water and whey is drained from the cheese. While the whey is continually pulled from the cheese, cheesemakers constantly separate the cheese by hand into smaller and small stacks of cheese curds, which form as the whey is removed. To complete the curding, a large amount of salt is added to cure the cheese and draw still more whey from it. The curds are finally cut into portions, filled into cheese molds, stacked on top of each other, and the remaining excess moisture is forced from the cheese with a constant 60 pounds (27 kg) of pressure for at least 24 hours, before the finished cheese is stored to age. For every 10 pounds (10 kilograms) of milk and whey, Beecher's will typically create 1 pound (1 kilogram) of finished cheese.
  Beecher's cheeses differ from similar cheeses in that they mix cheese growth cultures in unusual ways. For example, their signature "Flagship" cheese includes cultures typically used for non-cheddar cheeses, such as Gruyère and Emmental, changing the nature, flavor, and texture of their cheddar. Flagship cheese is produced using a cheddaring process, but owing to a different taste, Beecher's does not call this cheese cheddar. The cheese has been described as having a "sweet finish and creamy texture" unlike the tangier cheddars, owing to this being one of the chees
caption: Cheese being prepared at Beecher's Handmade Cheese
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