44 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • OCTOBER 2017 44 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • SEPTEMBER 2017 44 LONGISLANDPRESS.CO M • SEPTEMBER 201-----------TUTU111
FOOD & DRINK
Wheels of fortune
For Bridgehampton’s Ludlow family, cheese is a whey of life
By ERIC VOORHIS
Peter Ludlow reached into a small, straw-lined
enclosure and leaned toward a three-week-old
Jersey cow wearing a yellow nametag. It said
“Kreme.” The young calf sniffed Ludlow’s hand,
looking up with large brown eyes, and then
retreated with an awkward stumble.
“They’ll get super tame with plenty of hand
treatment,” said Ludlow. “You can see how
curious they are – a lot of personality. They all
get names.”
Kreme is part of the growing herd at Mecox
Bay Dairy, an artisan cheesemaking operation
in Bridgehampton that produces six styles of
cheese that are sold at farm markets throughout
the summer and to East End restaurants and
cheese shops. Pete’s father, Art Ludlow, launched
the business in 2003 after deciding it might be
more profitable than his other venture at the
time: potato farming. Now, Art’s two sons, Pete
and John – 30 and 28 – have started working for
the business full-time with hopes of scaling up
the operation.
“It’s a family-run business, through and
through,” said Pete as he and his brother made
cheese on a recent Friday morning. “But we
manage to get along alright. For the most part.”
With the recent addition of Kreme, Mecox has
more than 30 cows, 28 of which are milked on
a daily basis. They’re all pedigree Jersey cows, a
smaller, tawny-colored breed with a friendly disposition
and cartoonish eyelashes that’s known
for producing milk with a high fat content ideal
for making cheese. Producing large batches of
raw-milk cheese is a fairly simple process, Pete
explained: It’s all about consistency. He stood
over a massive metal vat filled nearly to the brim
with raw milk.
“Right now it’s all just heating up,” said Pete,
as he placed a large thermometer into the edge
of the vat. The room where they make cheese is
sterile and humid, with white-washed walls and
shiny chrome equipment. It’s about the size of a
double-wide trailer, and with both brothers clad
in white smocks and boots, plastic gloves and
hairnets, it’s hard not to think of the TV show
Dexter.
An early stage of the process is adding cultures
that begin to ferment the lactose in the milk,
according to Pete. This fermentation helps
dictate the moisture content of the cheese, and
has a big role in determining the taste, texture
and subtleties of the finished product. After the
enzymes do their thing, and the cheese heats up
to roughly 90 degrees, another enzyme called
rennet is added to the mix. The enzyme, which
helps to coagulate the milk into what will eventually
form cheese curds, is derived from the
lining of the fourth stomach of a calf.
“The story goes that the first guy who made
cheese did it accidentally when he was transporting
milk in a cow stomach that was acting
as a vessel,” said Pete. “It mixed all around and
there it was: cheese.”
Once the cheese reaches the sought pH level, it’s
cut with a cheese knife to help the curds separate
from the liquid whey. The curds become nearly
solid before they’re packed into molds, flipped
and salted.
“And then we basically put it on a shelf for a couple
years and forget about it,” Pete laughed.
Next to the cheesemaking room, a large metal
door leads to climate-controlled aging room.
Dozens of wheels of cheese fill the space ranging
from light brown to deep mahogany in color
depending on how long they’ve been aged, some
for more than five years.
There is some controversy in the cheese world
Pete and John Ludlow pour mounds of fresh
cheese curds into molds that will eventually
become Mecox Bay Dairy cheese. (Press photo:
Eric Voorhis)
Dozens of wheels of cheese on display in the aging room at Mecox Bay Dairy in Bridgehampton.