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Photograph

Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Milk Storage

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Description: After the milk is picked up at the farm, it is stored in tanks that hold up to 25,000 lbs. and is held at temperatures of 38 to 40 degrees.
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Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Pasturization

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Description: The milk is pasteurized for the first step in the cheesemaking process. Milk is heated to 161 degrees, held at that temperature for 15 seconds, and then co...
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Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Coagulation

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Description: Two men working in a vat that has been filled with pasteurized milk and to which rennet (an extract from a calf's stomach) has been added, which coagulates...
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Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Curds and Whey

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Description: The milk, after cutting, has been transformed into curds and whey. The curds are comprised of the solids in the milk and the remaining whey is the liquid p...
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Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Brick Cheese Forms

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Description: Workers are busy filling the stainless steel Brick Cheese forms with curds.
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Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Brick Cheese Production

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Description: Each Brick of cheese weighs out at approximately 5 pounds. The general rule of thumb is that it takes 10 pounds of milk to produce 1 pound of cheese. A 5 p...
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Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Forming Brick Cheese

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Description: After the curds are leveled off in each form, they are turned so that each side of the Brick is pressed. During the course of the day, each form is turned ...
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Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Brick Cheese

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Description: Brick Cheese derives its name from the bricks used to press the curds.
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Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Cream Extraction

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Description: There is some cream in the whey, which is extracted by pumping the whey through this cream separator (a Westfalia Centrifuge).
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Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Salt Brine Tank

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Description: Cheesemakers remove loaves of Brick Cheese that have been floating in the salt brine tank for 14 hours.
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Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Curing Room

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Description: The Foil Pack Brick Cheese is a surface-ripened cheese. Each cheese is washed with whey to enhance the ripening process, during the week-long stay in the c...
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Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Cheddaring

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Description: When making Cheddar Cheese, slabs of cheese are turned and packed, which is called, "Cheddaring."
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Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Curd Mill

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Description: The slabs of cheese are put through a curd mill, which makes the popular Cheddar Cheese Curds.
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Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Salting Cheese Curds

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Description: Salt is sprinkled on the newly cut cheese curds.
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Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Weighing Cheese Curds

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Description: The finished cheese curds are weighed and poured into forms to make a 40 pound block of cheese.
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Widmer's Cheese Cellars — Packaging Room

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Description: CEO Joe Widmer stands in the newly added area used for cheese packaging.
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Koll Barn — Interior

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Description: Paul and Evangeline Koll have 27 stanchions in their barn. They ceased milking cows May 26, 1988.
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Retzlaff Barn — Interior

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Description: The Retzlaff's own this antique potato planter, which was purchased from Ed Radke, a long time Theresa resident.
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Grantman Barn — Interior

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Description: Gordan Grantman stands in the barn which was once used by the Paul Dirks family.
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Hilgendorf Barn — Interior

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Description: The Hilgendorfs farm 300 acres with 55 milking cows and 45 heifers and calves. On this day they produced a little over 3,000 lbs. of milk.

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