WE PRODUCE A RAW, CAVE-AGED, FARMSTEAD SHEEP’S MILK CHEESE MADE ON A WELL-LOVED FAMILY RANCH IN THE BIG HORN MOUNTAINS OF WYOMING.
HARLAN RIDGE
A raw, cave-aged, semi-firm, farmstead sheep’s milk cheese Inspired by the sheep’s milk cheeses of the French and Spanish Pyrenees.
this cheese dresses for the occasion.
At Red Fork Farmstead we produce broadly appealing, completely unique, raw sheep’s milk cheese on our historic family ranch in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming.
We are a Farmstead operation, meaning we own every aspect of production from end to end: sheep to cheese, which assures the very best quality of milk and cheese. The milk we use to make our cheese is produced by our sheep on our land from animals we manage. This guarantees the finest milk quality that reflects Wyoming.
We are trained artisan cheesemakers. We attended Academie Opus Caseus at the headquarters of MonS Fromager-Affineur in St. Haon le Chatel, France. We also attended the Fundamentals of Artisan Cheese at the School of the New American Farmstead, as well as Affinage: The Art and Science of Maturing Cheese at Sterling College. We received hands-on training from world-renowned master cheesemaker Ivan Larcher at his creamery in France. We developed our recipe for Harlan Ridge in collaboration with Larcher. We began our initial cheesemaking trials in late 2018 and, by April 2019, we knew we had a winner - the perfect recipe for our terroir (our natural environment including soil, climate, elevation, as well as our water and feed). And soon, we hope you’ll begin to see it in stores near you.
We have state-of-the-art facilities. For the design of our underground cave affinage, we consulted with Eric Meredith, a master Affineur on a truly global level. Meredith had a hand in designing the affinage caves and programs for Neal’s Yard Dairy in London, MonS Fromager-Affineur in France, and Jasper Hill in Vermont. Our affinage cave provides the perfect balance of temperature and humidity for the maturation of our cheese.
We have big plans. As we increase our flock size, we will produce a wide variety of sheep’s milk cheeses -- both raw and pasteurized -- that reflect and celebrate our unique terroir.
And why cheese, you ask? Cheese has always been our family's go-to snack and it's always a staple at family get-togethers. Cheese is rich in healthy nutrients, probiotics, calcium, and protein. All the health benefits of milk are in our cheese. It’s just that cheese is way more delicious and fun to eat than milk is to drink.
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CHEESE IS OUR PRODUCT.
SHEEP ARE OUR BUSINESS.
Happy, healthy animals produce the healthiest milk,
and our sheep are raised with expert care and bred to produce the highest-quality lambs and milk.
we knew from the beginning this Business would require long-term strategic flock management, starting with a three-year-long genetic Improvement program. And now, our consistently succulent cheese is the result of our steadfast commitment to the health and comfort of our sheep.
Our sheep get the highest quality alfalfa hay - perfectly dried and rich with blooms and leaves. Our hay is nutritious and has a sweet, fresh-from-the-field aroma. And the sheep are fed “free choice”, meaning they can eat as much and often as they desire.
We see every sheep every day so we know if one needs a little TLC. We spare no effort or expense in assuring that each sheep is healthy, comfortable, and stress-free. Our sheep depend on us and we work hard to earn their trust. We treat them with gentle respect and speak to them in a calm, kind voice.
We bought our first sheep from reputable dairies who had invested for many years in the genetic improvement of their flocks in concert with the sheep dairy program at the Spooner Agricultural Research Station, U-WI Madison. But before we made our first wheel of cheese we spent three years improving our flock’s overall health, condition, and genetics. We invested heavily in identifying the best mix of breeds for our terroir - the very best genetics to assure every sheep born here would have The Three V’s: vigor, vitality, and joie de Vivre.
Sheep’s milk is naturally homogenized, contains significantly more protein and major nutrients, and is easier to digest than cow’s or goat’s milk. It also contains twice as much butterfat (7.4%) as cow’s (3.7%) and goat’s milk (3.6%), giving the cheese a much more flavorful and delicious bite each time.
We’re proud to say our flock is unique to the US in its breed composition. The “U.S. dairy sheep” breed developed at the Spooner Agricultural Research Station is predominantly East Friesian. The East Friesian originated in Germany and are the “Holstein cows” of dairy sheep, producing the highest volume of milk. Because we planned to make cheese, we wanted more butterfat and protein in our milk. So we introduced Awassi and Lacaune genetics to our flock. The Awassi and Lacaune breeds are the “Jersey cows” of dairy sheep -- their milk contains the highest percentage of butterfat and protein. The Awassi is a Middle East desert sheep, indigenous to Israel. Over the past 85 years, the Israelis invested heavily in improving Awassi genetics for milk production - resulting in a hardy breed that produces milk rich in butterfat and protein. We are one of only a handful of people in the U.S. who have Iraeli-improved Awassi genetics. To further increase the butterfat and protein content of our milk, as well as the prolificacy of our flock, we introduced Lacaune genetics. The Lacaune originated in southern France, the ancestral home of Roquefort and many other sheep's milk cheeses. Although our genetic program is in its infancy, we have already seen the results: our ewes produce a high quantity of incredibly rich and nutritious milk, the taste and aroma of which shines through our cheese.
Genetic improvement requires time, resources, and devotion, and we committed to this ongoing effort on Day 1 to ensure our cheeses would be made using only the best quality milk.
CHEESE HAS 3 EVER-SO-IMPORTANT M’S:
MILK, MANUFACTURING, AND MATURATION.
We set out to perfect all three. Before we even started our first cheesemake.
Our cheese is cave-aged in a state-of-the-art underground affinage. Right on site at the creamery.
Producing the best sheep’s milk is an art and a science. Every dairy farm has its own terroir and produces milk of unique quality, taste and aroma. For us, the art is caring for the sheep, assuring they’re always strong, healthy, and comfortable. The science is improving the flock’s productivity in our unique terroir. Both take time, dedication, and resources. But you can taste the results in the richness and sweet aroma of Harlan Ridge. The French -- who know a thing or two about aging cheeses -- identify two stages in cheesemaking: first the cheesemake (manufacturing), which turns liquid milk into fresh cheese curds, and then maturation, which transforms fresh curds into an aged cheese.
The art of manufacturing cheese is knowing how the curd should look and feel, when it’s time to cut and whey off, the use of moulds to shape the curds, and applied pressure to remove the exact amount of whey to ensure a moist interior paste. The science of manufacturing is perfecting a recipe for our unique milk - finding the sweet spot in the combination of ingredients (milk, cultures, rennet, salt) together with temperature and time. The art and science of manufacturing takes trial and error, learning from your successes and failures. It’s about fine-tuning the taste, aroma, and texture of both the paste and rind in each successive cheesemake and waiting months to get the results. Then, if you’re lucky enough to produce a winner, you must prove you can produce it consistently over time. The art and science of manufacturing takes time, persistence, and resources. Harlan Ridge is our first winner.
Affinage is the art and science of maturing cheese to achieve peak ripeness, texture, and flavor, as well as the facility in which the cheese is matured (historically a climate controlled cave or stone cellar). Our underground cave affinage facility provides the perfect environment of humidity, temperature, and air flow for our cheese as it matures. Our cheese is cave-aged the old fashioned way -- unlike most American artisan cheeses that are matured in simple, above-ground, electric refrigeration. The reasons for this are obvious: putting in an above-ground cold storage refrigerator is significantly less expensive and quicker to install than digging an underground aging cave. However, cold storage refrigeration lacks humidity and air flow controls that are necessary to create the ideal microbiological environment. By contrast, in Europe (France, especially) expert affinage is standard practice. This might help explain why many European cheeses taste so much better than American artisan cheeses.
We wish we could push the smell of our affinage through this webpage because it is simply delightful: think a wafting cloud of sweet cream, butter, salt, and a hit of strawberries and lush alfalfa hay blossoms. Our affinage process assures meticulous care of each wheel of cheese as it matures to its peak. We see every cheese every day. Our affinage perfects the unique taste, texture, and aroma of Harlan Ridge.
THE AMERICAN DREAM. REALIZED.
Our family’s history is like many others: We chased — and still are chasing — the American Dream.
OUR FAMILY HAS BEEN RANCHING AND RAISING LIVESTOCK IN WYOMING FOR OVER 100 YEARS.
Our family put down roots on this remote and forbidding land -- hanging on through all the blizzards, droughts, floods, and fires Mother Nature threw at them. This land isn't for quitters. Or get-rich-quickers. Through the challenges and hardships, we developed our own brand of cheerful resilience - we buck up, carry on, and look for the rainbow after the storm.
We’re shepherds. We care for our flock and the land that sustains us. We care for our family, our friends, our community, and those less fortunate. For us, Wyoming will always be The Cowboy State … the big sky, rugged terrain, high desert, quiet and isolation. When you live in The High Lonesome, you learn to work hard, be patient, and take the long view.
Charles L. Harlan was born in Iowa in 1876. When he was a young boy his uncle’s family departed Iowa in a covered wagon headed for Wyoming -- and settled a few miles from our family ranch. As a teenager, Harlan traveled by train and horse to visit the family -- and fell in love with Wyoming and its people. He became the first economist reporting on livestock prices across the country -- which required him to live in Washington D.C. but allowed him to travel across the country every summer collecting market data at all the major livestock sale locations. At the end of every summer he took a few weeks vacation to visit the Wyoming family. When his son (James S. Harlan) was a young child he rode along -- traveling all summer in a Model T on dirt roads -- for the joy of spending time in Wyoming. He, too, fell in love with pastoral Wyoming. For many years, C.L. Harlan saved money so he could lease and eventually buy the family ranch.
James S. Harlan was born in 1921 and grew up in Arlington, Virginia. He came to Wyoming every chance he got and spent summers working on the ranch as a teenager. He had a life-long love for this land. He joined the Army during WWII and was taken prisoner in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1945. From his six grueling months in a German prison camp, he had a deep-seated fear of hunger and appreciation for the lowly turnip, which kept him alive. After the war, he returned to Iowa State University where he met Joanne Hayes from Chicago, known as Jo Harlan to most (and Granny to family). They graduated, got married and decided to pursue a life of adventure in Wyoming.
So, they packed their belongings in an old Jeep, and moved to the ranch. Their early days here were truly wild -- no electricity, running water, or phone. They hauled water from the Powder River for cooking, bathing, and washing dishes and clothes. They chopped wood to heat the cookstove and the house. Their first ranching enterprise -- starting a cow dairy to provide milk for a proposed town that was never built -- was a dismal failure. They had no money but they persevered, buoyed by big dreams and their love for the land. In the early 1950’s they acquired their first lambs by share-cropping with an old sheep herder who grazed “the long pasture” (public road right-of-way). Over time, they put in a water well, got electricity, and a phone. They worked hard, and raised four children, and housed many young men who lived in their upstairs and worked on the ranch. As they told their visitors, “We don’t have much, but you’re welcome to share what we have.” From jump street they knew that it doesn’t take money or fame to make a difference in peoples’ lives and the community. In recognition of their lifetime of service to the community and state “Harlan Ridge” was named for them on the USGS topographic map of our area (Red Fork Powder River WY 2017). A true love of each other and of the land drove them onward, and they built a ranch and a family. We share their pioneering spirit. It inspired us to take the bold risk of starting a sheep dairy and cheese making business to breathe new life into our family's historic ranch.
The ranch is a magical place, and we’ve been fortunate to share it with so many families, friends, and strangers over the years.
SUSTAINABILITY OF THE EARTH, OUR COMMUNITY, AND AGRICULTURE.
Our vision is one shared by many Americans – a business built on love of family, the earth and the bounty made possible through care for both.
We hope our products and sharing our vision will inspire others, to build thriving and restorative models of modern agriculture.
There’s no time like the present. Consumers want locally produced, high-quality food. We want to produce the world’s best artisan farmstead cave-aged sheep’s milk cheese while staying focused on the sustainability of our land and our flock. Our values are perfectly aligned.
There’s no place like Wyoming. It’s the perfect place to raise sheep. And there’s no place like our ranch. We’ve been raising sheep here for generations.
Our modern agricultural practices assure our flock is healthy and contented while minimizing our environmental footprint.
Our business is our heritage, sustaining our land, our flock, our family, and our community.
As our family says: Take care of your land and animals, and they’ll take care of you.
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COMING SOON!
VERY SOON WE’LL BE FEATURING RECIPES THAT UTILIZE OUR delicious WYOMING SHEEP’S MILK CHEESES! CHECK BACK OFTEN!
We can’t wait to share our passion with you.
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
1
What ingredients are in cheese?
Cheese has four basic ingredients: milk, cultures, coagulant, and salt. Thousands of different cheeses come from these four ingredients. The milk can be raw or pasteurized, and produced by cows, goats, water buffalo, or - in our case - sheep. Like the bacteria lactobacilli used to make sourdough bread, cultures are carefully selected bacteria used in cheesemaking. Typically, the milk is ripened with cultures before a coagulant is added. The coagulant transforms the proteins in liquid milk into a solid called curd. In traditional cheesemaking, the coagulant used is an enzyme extracted from the stomach of a calf, kid, or lamb on a milk diet. The salt in cheese adds flavor, acts as a preservative, and influences cheese texture and cooking properties. Traditionally, salt is added to cheese during the aging process (maturation).
2
why make cheese from sheep’s milk?
Sheep’s milk contains almost twice as much butterfat as cow’s and goat’s milk and far more protein. The richness of sheep’s milk gives it a delicious flavor and texture, and makes it excellent for cheesemaking. Also, sheep’s milk is naturally homogenized, so it is easier to digest than other milk. Sheep’s milk is unique in that it can be frozen without altering its taste, texture, or its physical or chemical composition.
3
is imported sheep’s milk cheese really the best?
Almost all (99%) of the sheep’s milk cheese sold in the U.S. is imported from foreign countries. In fact, the U.S. is the world’s largest importer of sheep’s milk cheese. The world’s largest producers of sheep’s milk cheese are Greece, China, Italy, Spain, Syria, France, Turkey, Romania, Iran and Portugal. The world’s largest exporters of sheep’s milk cheese are Italy, France, Bulgaria, Greece, Spain, and Romania.
What does that mean for U.S. consumers? It means that 99% of the sheep’s milk cheese you can buy was made in a foreign country … under foreign food safety and animal welfare laws. Most foreign sheep’s milk cheese producers get their milk from hundreds of small farms. Some foreign cheeses are hauled to a commercial affinage for maturation. After maturation, the cheese is loaded on a truck or train and hauled to a major shipping port, where it sits in a warehouse until it is loaded onto a cargo ship. Then the cheese spends two or three weeks in a shipping container crossing the ocean. When the cargo ship docks at a U.S. port, the cheese is unloaded and hauled to a distributor’s warehouse - where it sits until the distributor loads it on a truck and delivers it to your store. Cheese made in foreign countries and sold under U.S. labels also makes this journey to market. By the time it gets to your shop’s cheese coffin, imported sheep’s milk cheese has passed through a lot of hands. Let’s just say, imported sheep’s milk cheese gets around.
4
Why is so little sheep’s milk cheese made in the united states?
Although Americans buy 73 million pounds of sheep’s milk cheese a year, almost all of it is imported from foreign countries. So why is only 1% of sheep’s milk cheese produced here? For one thing, the sheep’s milk cheese industry is centuries old in Europe and the Middle East. When those countries began to export their sheep’s milk cheese, exports became a key market. To protect their exported sheep’s milk cheese from competition, foreign countries sought market protection. They got international designations that prohibit the production of many sheep’s milk cheeses in the U.S. They also got international designations that prohibit our use of common cheese names. For example, even if a U.S. sheep’s milk cheese is virtually identical to Parmigiana-Reggiano, the U.S. producer can’t call his cheese Parmigiana-Reggiano. The same goes for U.S. produced sheep’s milk cheeses that are identical to Feta, Roquefort, Ossau-Iraty, Brebirousse d’Argental, P’tit Basque, Abbaye de Belloc, Basco-béarnaise, Idiazabal, Manchego, and Pecorino. Some of the international designations held by foreign countries are Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), Traditional Specialties Guaranteed (TSG), Appellation d'origine Contrôlée (AOC/France), Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC/Italy), Denominação de Origem Controlada (DOC/Portugal), Denumire de Origine Controlată (DOC/Romania), and Denominación de Origen (DO/Spain).
This foreign market protection scheme significantly increased the amount of sheep’s milk cheese imported to the U.S. - effectively blocking development of the industry here. Also, American producers don’t receive the direct and indirect government subsidies received by foreign cheese producers, which further dampens U.S. competition. As a result, there was no incentive for Americans to try sheep dairying. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s that the first sheep dairies started here. Dairy sheep from foreign countries were generally unavailable, so it has taken decades to improve U.S. sheep for milk production. By 2010, there were only 80 sheep dairies in the U.S. Because it is so costly to construct, license, and operate a creamery in this country, most sheep dairies sell their milk to third party creameries. The costs of compliance with USDA and FDA regulations, the cost of labor, and the lack of government subsidies make it difficult for U.S. cheesemakers to compete with the price of imported sheep’s milk cheese.
5
WHy Harlan Ridge?
The one thing you can be sure of in sheep dairying is that the ewes must be milked twice a day for over 200 days. That means every single ewe must come to the parlor twice every single day for over 200 consecutive days. There are no vacation, sick leave, or I-don’t-feel-like-it days. The same goes for cheesemaking. Cheese must be made day in and day out – sometimes twice a day. Each cheesemake takes about 10 hours – only 20% of which is active cheesemaking. The rest is sanitizing, setting up, cleaning up, washing, and sanitizing. And the cheeses in the affinage must tended every day, 365 days a year.
Knowing we would be spending all day, every day in the parlor and creamery, we designed the buildings to offer expansive views of Harlan Ridge – the rugged, tree covered mountain that overlooks the Powder River. Harlan Ridge flanks the river for miles through our family ranch and is a nearly impassable barrier between the ranch headquarters and the high plateau beyond. In 2008, the United States permanently named Harlan Ridge in recognition of James and Joanne Harlan’s service to the community and state.
Home to deer, elk, mountain lions, bobcats, fox, coyotes, eagles, hawks, and turkeys, Harlan Ridge is the wild west. And it is an integral part of our daily lives. We start and end each day with it. Milking sheep and making cheese, we watch clouds chase across the sky above it, thunder boomers come crashing over the rim, shadows slip over its face, and the seasons play with its colors. Never changing, yet ever-changing. Harlan Ridge is woven into the fabric of our lives and lifts our spirits as we work. How could we name our flagship cheese anything else?