Home Cheesemaking Workshops at Keswick Creamery

Come to Keswick Creamery and learn to make cheese. In this intensive two day workshop you will learn all about different cheese types and making cheeses. You will make cheese to take home and aquire the knowledge and skills to do it in your own kitchen. During these two day classes we will cover milk quality, cultures, rennet, and how they apply to cheesemaking. We will make feta, jack, yogurt, quark and fresh curd cheese. We will cover brining, salting and waxing cheeses. You will take home some of all the cheeses we make in the class.

Class size is limited to 10 people for the best learning atmosphere. Please no children under 12 without preauthorization. We will offer cheesemaking classes for under 12 in the summer. Class fee must be paid to hold your spot. We will maintain a waiting list and contact you if a spot opens. No refunds if you cancel within 3 days of the class.

Cost: $200/person- includes 2 days of instruction, farm tour, recipes, the materials needed to make the cheeses, dinner on Friday, breakfast and lunch on Saturday, and cheeses from the class that you will take home.

Class runs 4pm to 9 pm on Friday and 8:30am to 4 pm on Saturday.

About the Instructors:

Melanie Dietrich Cochran has been making farmstead cheese on her family’s dairy farm since early 2001. She graduated in 1996 from Va Tech with a BS in Dairy Science. With her husband, Mark, they returned to her family’s dairy farm in 1997. They founded Keswick Creamery in 2000 and started production and farmers markets in 2001. Melanie took Dairy Science and Technology Basics for the Farmstead Cheesemaker Short Course at Cal Poly, SLO, CA in May 2000. Since then she has had numerous workshops with Kathy Biss, Jonathan White and Peter Dixon. For the last four years she has taught a 3 day beginning cheese workshop in Western PA for Penn Soil RC&D. Mark and Melanie have hosted field days and workshops at their creamery and participated in workshops as numerous PASA conferences.

Mark F. Dietrich Cochran has had his hands in the curds since early 2006. Mark graduated from Va Tech in 1996 with a BA in English. He worked in graphic design from 1997 to 2005. When their daughter, Madelyn, was born in December 2005, Mark left his job in Harrisburg to join Keswick Creamery full time. Applying his creativity to the cheese process has added favorites to the Keswick Creamey line up, like Blue Suede Moo, Tommenator and Mad Tomme! Mark took the Pasteurizer Operators Short Course at Penn State in 2006. Since then he has attended workshops with Kathy Biss and Peter Dixon. He has also presented on cheese and yogurt at the PASA Conference.