"OK, any time," Sue Miller directed as she leaned into a stainless steel vat of cultured raw milk from her Holstein cows. While she held one end of a long plastic tube, her cousin, Ruth Statt, stood outside and siphoned the whey into milk cans for the farm's pigs to enjoy later. It's one step in a complicated cheesemaking process.
"I woke up one morning and thought, 'I shouldn't be growing vegetables; I should be making cheese,'" said Miller of Birchrun Hills Farm in Chester Springs. Looking to supplement the dairy farm's income, Miller took a class with a Vermont cheesemaker.
Eager for feedback, she and her husband, Ken, gave away their first batch as Christmas presents. "We said, 'This gift comes with one condition. You have to be brutally honest.' They loved it."
Four years later, business is booming and the Millers aren't alone. Birchrun Hills is one of eight Chester County Cheese Artisans to form an alliance and launch a new website promoting their farmstead cheeses. The site debuted just in time for June's National Dairy Month. The idea: encourage people to buy local. "Never underestimate your purchasing money and what that can do for the local economy," stressed Miller, dressed in jeans and a "support local" T-shirt.
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