Why unpasteurized milk?
Because it makes for a tastier cheese. One little problem with pasteurization is that it kills (along with the bad) the good bacteria that destroy harmful microbes. We prefer to keep the good right where they belong, seeing as they would have to be reintroduced artificially anyway. Pasteurization also inactivates various native enzymes in milk, which in the slow aging process produce flavor, character and complexity in our Berkshire Blue. Why Jersey cows’ milk? Because Jersey milk has consistently high butterfat, calcium and protein contents. No other cows’ milk compares. Period. (Some trivia: Jerseys have the highest IQ of domesticated bovines. Any farmer with a mixed herd will tell you that when his cows escape for greener pastures, it is usually a Jersey leading the herd.) Why do you make such a big deal about doing everything by hand? To quote the eminent food science writer Harold McGee, milk is a “living tissue,” so complex are the interactions among its manifold enzymes and micr