Rockhill Creamery
Every morning Pete Schropp in Richmond wakes up while the sun is rising to spend some time with “his girls,” Gertrude, Ingrid, Elsa, Ruby and Greta. Each week they help him and his wife, Jennifer Hines, produce 200 gallons of milk and 175 pounds of cheese a week. The “girls” are his cows.
For the last two and a half years, the couple has been making cheese from their licensed dairy farm, Rockhill Creamery, and sell the products in and out of state, from their farmstand in Richmond to the gardener’s markets in Logan and Salt Lake City.
“It’s a lot of work,” Hines said as she stirred 98 gallons of milk in a cheese vat. “We haven’t been on vacation in six years. You have to be really dedicated to milk a cow two times a day, 365 days a year.”
Schropp, who bought the farm about 22 years ago, said he doesn’t mind working with his cows every day though.
“Pete’s the one who loves the cows, and I love making food,” Hines said
Twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, the couple spends 7 to 8 hours making cheese. Schropp milks and then Hines stirs about 100 gallons of the milk while heating it to the perfect temperature. Eventually, the milk turns into curds and Hines cuts it into small cubes. The curd is then placed in plastic molds and shaped into wheels. The same afternoon, the cheese is flipped five more times before being ready for the aging room where it is shaped and brined in salt water for three days. Then, for two months, the cheese wheels age and Hines “babies them.”
“I like to say the cows are my girls and these are like my babies,” Hines said as she stood in the refrigerated aging room with nearly 200 wheels next to her on shelves. “They have to be cleaned and flipped twice a week,” she said. “They’re rubbed down after they develop molds, which add flavors to the cheese.”
Even though it takes time and a lot of work, the couple enjoys what they do.
“I like having a direct relationship with our customers. When you think about farmers harvesting grain and bailing hay, they never get to meet the customers,” Hines said. “Once a week I get a shot in the arm when someone says, ‘We love your cheese.’ It’s very rewarding.”
Hines said she began making cheese a few years ago with goat milk that she used to buy even though she and Schropp were raising heifer cows. Eventually it just made sense to use their own cow milk for cheese and see if they could make a business out of it.
They had the facilities and the animals, Schropp said, and they wanted to try doing something they had control of. This idea led to visiting California wineries, and the couple decided they could do something like that – but not quite.
Because of the Cache Valley climate, they wouldn’t be able to make wine. Instead they could make cheese. And now, almost three years later, they are still making six different flavors of cheese and are learning about their art.
“Every batch is different depending on the season, how the cows are feeling and the grass they eat,” Hines said. “Our recipes are still slightly changing and that’s normal. A lot of master cheese makers in Europe study cheese making for 20 years.”
The whole process is very precise, from the temperatures and the time it takes for the cheese to become perfect, Hines said. There are even certain times of the year when the cows won’t produce milk.
What a lot of people don’t know, Hines said, is that the cows have to be bred to be able to produce milk. After that, farmers can milk the cows for 10 months before a dry spell of two months. Someday, if the Rockhill Creamery cows get on the same schedule, the couple could have two months in the year when they wouldn’t have to make cheese. But Hines said the girls just aren’t cooperating.
However, she said she doesn’t seem to mind for now.
“Our pace of life is different. We don’t live in the cubical culture. We’re not on our e-mail and cell phones all the time. We have a nice lifestyle,” she said.
Rockhill Creamery will probably always stay small; the most cows the couple would want to milk is six. Currently they make about 8,800 pounds of cheese a year, and Hines said they are about maxed out.
“Some people think we’re absolutely insane. We won’t make a lot of money,” she said.
Hines said she was working another 30-hour job as of June and will now just focus on the farm. And for both her and Schropp, it’s all worth it.
“I like the animals, and I really like the people that buy our cheese,” Schropp said.
Rockhill Creamery is located at 563 S. State Street in Richmond and is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays during the warm months. Its cheese can also be purchased online, at its stand every Saturday, at the Gardener’s Market at Pioneer Park in Logan and at Crumb Brother’s, Sweet Peas and Lee’s Marketplace. For more information call 258-1278.
-manette.n@aggiemail.usu.edu