Meier's Artisan Cheese Unique In North Country
WESTVILLE- Dan Meier, who owns and operates Meier's Artisan Cheese, offers locals a taste of something unique to the area - authentic homestead artisan cheese.
Homestead artisan cheese means it is handmade with milk from the cheesemaker's own cows.
Mr. Meier has approximately 320 cows in his herd, and the milk from 40 or 50 cows is made into cheese. He said the rest is sent on to a milk plant in Adams Center.
After the milk is harvested, Meier pasteurizes it at 145 degrees for 30 minutes. He says that many large-scale cheese manufacturers will pasteurize at 165 degrees for eight seconds in a machine rather than a vat.
His process, between the initial heating and cool-down time, is several hours.
Mr. Meier said he does not make well-known varieties of cheese, such as mozzarella or cheddar.
"There is way too much of that out there," he said.
He makes his own types of cheese that he has crafted over time that are unique to his farm. He names the varieties after local places, such as St. Regis, Snye and Mt. Titus.
"I believe in diversity as a bit of a solution to what's going on out there," Mr. Meier noted.
He also makes whole milk cheese curd, which differs from the washed curd that other cheese manufacturers produce. Washed curd has water added.
"We take the milk and do it straight with that," Meier said.
Meier immigrated to Ontario about 23 years ago and then to the U.S. about nine years later. He originally hails from the Freiamt region of Switzerland in the fore-Alps, about 2,400 feet above sea level.
While in Switzerland working as a dairy farmer, he learned how to make cheese by observing the local cheesemaker who would have milk brought to him from nine local dairy farmers twice each day.
Mr. Meier said his current operation produces about four times as much milk as those nine farmers over the course of a year.
He sells the cheeses at his farm, which is about a half mile east of the Fort Covington-Westville town line on state Route 37 near its intersection with Mary Riley Road.
The freshest cheese is on the shelves after 5 p.m. Thursdays and all day Fridays and Saturdays.
