Madison Findlay

Staff Writer​

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As the temperatures outside drop, nothing sounds better than enjoying a warm bowl of tomato cheddar soup accompanied by a crispy grilled cheese sandwich. But where exactly does the star of that cozy fall meal, cheese, come from?

 

Sue Kurta, founder of Boss Mouse Cheese, has been in the business of artisan cheese making for more than a decade. After taking a wine and cheese class in her home state of New York, she found a passion for caseiculture. The more she learned about the craft, the more she loved it. Her journey to where she is now was influenced greatly by taking beginner and intermediate cheese making classes in Vermont.

 

After moving to Kingsley, Michigan in 2010, what started as a hobby, unexpectedly turned into a Grand Traverse County establishment. It became evident that the demand for her hand crafted products far outweighed her original intent of only selling cheeses at farmers markets on Saturdays. Kurta quit her job and immersed herself fully in the expansion of her business. She spent the next year working towards getting her Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development license as well as improving her cheese plant on their historic farm in Kingsley.

 

Kurta also offers two cheese making classes available to the public which include fresh mozzarella making and the production of a two pound wheel of aged cheese. She also teaches for the MSU dairy division.

 

Now, Boss Mouse Cheese provides 12 types of aged cow's milk artisan cheeses and sub cheeses, including cheddar, Montasio, and their best seller: Swiss. Their products can be found wholesale from their website and select local retailers like Oryana’s, and featured in the dishes of many restaurants in Traverse City, notably Sugar 2 Salt, The Cooks’ House, and Farm Club.

 

Kurta shared that “The first culprit of bad tasting cheese is the milk,” as animals’ diets will affect the color and flavor of the finished product. Though they have done cheeses with goat’s milk and sheep’s milk in the past, they currently only sell products made with cow’s milk. The milk used is sourced from De Vor Dairy Farm and Creamery, located in Kalkaska, Michigan.

 

Kurta says all of their cheeses have natural rinds. In other words, they have no wax, plastic, or cloth covering; rather, they are aged in open air in order to “breathe” and take on the flavor of that specific place. Part of Boss Mouse Cheese’s plant is their cheese cave, a humid 55° Fahrenheit room with racks for the cheese wheels to age on.

 

Boss Mouse Cheese takes classic cheeses and experiments with combining different flavors such as ramp, dried flower, and maple chipotle to varying amounts of success. For example, their special garlic dill Montasio (which is typically plain in its native country of Italy). Kurta has also experimented with “Cheed,” a non-commercial cannabis cheese hybrid.

 

So how exactly is their cheese made? According to Kurta, the first step is simply warming the milk in a large cheese vat. Then, bacteria is added. Bacteria is added for a number of reasons, the first being that Michigan is one of the 13 states that does not allow use of raw milk. Kurta also explains that to get specific flavors of cheese one must use specific types of bacteria to “invite it to ferment in that flavor.”

 

The cheese cultures, or bacteria, are dried in milk powder. It cultures for around an hour and starts “eating” the lactose. A coagulant is added; in this case, rennet. This causes the mixture to solidify. The curd is then cut into cubes, heated, and stirred to cook, with cheeses requiring varying amounts of heat. The curd is separated from the whey, or water portion of milk. The curd is then pressed overnight to two days depending on the type of cheese being made.

 

At this point the cheese has no flavor. It can be aged anywhere from two months to a year, again, depending on what product is being made. When testing for readiness, a core sample is taken with a trier. By the end of the aging process some cheeses are so covered in mold they look like rocks, with some even having cheese mites. The mold is then brushed off or rinsed off in a sink. After drying overnight the cheese is ready to be cut and packaged for sale.

 

Kurta’s advice: “If you’re true to your own heart, deeply authentic, and believe in what you’re doing, you can’t go wrong. Keep hustling.”