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Cheese, Demystified Ever wondered what goes into making dairy delicacies? Cherie Krystyna spends a day with some of the city’s finest cheesemakers. Light has not begun to touch the Seattle skyline. Pike Place Market at 5 am is stunning. The stalls are empty. There's no evidence of the heavy traffic, the shouting vendors, the truckloads of fresh cut flowers that will arrive in a matter of hours.

The storefront of Beecher's Handmade Cheese is illuminated--a solitary light bulb in an inky attic. A truck is parked alongside the building, its thick hose pumping fresh milk directly into large vats visible through the windows.

Brad Sinko, the head cheesemaker, meets me in the front room. We don tall rubber boots and white jackets, then head towards the production floor. Before entering the cheese room, we sanitize our boots by stepping on a slick black mat.

The equipment is a blur of metal machines. There are pipes that lead every which way, a big steel pressurizer and a hanging gaggle of large thick hooks and rakes that resemble glorified garden tools. And, of course, there are those two huge vats that continue to absolutely mesmerize me. I'm watching the lazy flow of milk circle within one of them while the rennet is added, the level rising ever so slowly. It is not quiet in here, the noise emanating from the hoses and the pressurizer, and from the stirring as a metal paddle bumps the side of the vat.

Brad begins explaining the delicate measurements that go into making a cheese that folks line up for. At this point, one of the vats is still empty while the other is full. The mixing is constant, now with a different paddle. He grabs a square net, an assistant comes forward from the back and together they pull the net through the liquid. The milk has a viscous consistency at this point; I can see this from the gelatinous pieces that float to the surface.

I notice it's getting a little lighter outside. The gulls stalk the dumpsters, the street folk emerge from doorways rolling up their bedding as businesses begin to unshutter their windows.

The milk is getting thicker, now resembling a wet cottage cheese. I ask Brad what it tastes like. He pulls up a handful: "Try it, it's sweet." It is indeed sweet, practically dissolving on my tongue. It barely tastes like cheese at all...more like sweet milk in a more solid form. The temperature is turned up in the vat as Brad continues to stir and then pauses to add paddles to the machine propped above. Now, the milk circulates constantly with or without him. Mist rises as the remaining liquid evaporates.

A hose is turned on and the thickened liquid is transferred from one vat to the other. Now only lumps remain. Brad and his assistant Dillon cut through the pieces, pushing them together, the water leeching out. Squish and roll, squish and roll and cut and flip and roll. They repeat the process every fifteen minutes. These guys may as well be rolling dice; not a bead of sweat despite what looks like labor intensive activity.

With my head lodged in the process, I had failed to realize that the storefront had opened. The lines have begun, and when I turn toward the windows, I face a crowd three deep watching the workings of the cheese room. Children push their noses up against the glass and some even give a little tap to catch the attention of the workers. All the while, Brad and the rest of his staff go merrily on their way obviously comfortable with the audience.

"Don't make eye contact!" Brad jokes when he sees I'm absorbed in the spectacle. For some reason this crowd doesn't seem real to me--I forget that they can see me as clearly as I them.

For the final steps, the cheddar mill is rolled out. The big blocks are fed into a loud machine which in turn spits out finger sized pieces of cheese. It's almost comedic, the cheese pieces fly out at such a fast pace--they look like a combination of confetti and hail. Soon the whole batch of sturdy bricks has been reduced to french fry form and is ready to be placed into "hoops". The "hoops" (essentially metal boxes that hold a plastic sleeve inside) are filled to the brim with cheese bits, weighed, then placed into an air press overnight. In the morning, the crew will "break the hoops"- removing the now bagged and compressed blocks of cheese from the molds. Finally, they are placed in boxes and stored anywhere from 12 to 20 months depending on what type of cheese they are destined to become.

Its nearly 3pm when the first shift is done and I feel as though I have been awake for days. The Beecher's process is long, structured, scientific, interesting and at times uneventful. I realize that cheesemaking is truly an exercise in patience and precision, and Brad and his crew have it down to an art. It appears choreographed, each member materializing at exactly the right place at any given time. Its truly impressive to behold.

To read an interview with Brad Sinko and see photos of the entire process, link to Cherie's blog.