They say that 90 percent of cheesemaking is cleaning up, and I believe it after watching Maureen Cunnie produce cottage cheese.
Cunnie is the cheesemaker for Cowgirl Creamery, and I spent a morning with her recently at the original Point Reyes dairy (the company also has a newer facility in Petaluma). She must have washed her hands 20 times while I was there, in between sanitizing implements, scrubbing vats and swabbing counters.
Compare ingredients on tubs of supermarket cottage cheese and you will note that Cowgirl Creamery's recipe stands out. The product contains no gums or carrageenan to stabilize it, and no rennet or enzymes to coagulate the milk quickly. Instead, the skimmed organic milk is cultured and allowed to coagulate slowly, a process that takes up to 16 hours. Adding rennet would cut the curd-formation time dramatically, but Cunnie wants the flavor development that comes with a long, slow set.
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