 We are all about cheese and milk, but what makes our cheeses special? Edgewood Creamery cheeses are ARTISAN.
Artisan cheese is primarily handmade and produced in small batches by traditional, predominantly non-mechanical methods. Superior freshness, natural and local ingredients and attention to detail and excellence are all part of the artisan tradition. Artisan cheese makers support traditional jobs, healthy farming practices, and the noble art of making something carefully, beautifully, and skillfully. Quality cheese originates from quality milk. With grass-fed cows you can't get much better! #EdgewoodCreamery #ArtisanCheese #HandcraftedCheese#FarmsteadCheese #GrassfedMilk #GrassfedCows #FreshMilk#FamilyOwned #SmallBusiness #PurdyMO #Missouri #DairyGood#UndeniablyDairy #Dairy #DairyFarm #DairyManufacturer#DairyProducer #Creamery #WhereMilkComesFrom #MilkProcessing#CheeseProcessing #Cheese #Milk #Healthy
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 Photo Courtesy of: 417 Magazine In honor of National Ice Cream Month, we are sharing our family recipe for chocolate ice cream - made with Edgewood Creamery rich, chocolate milk! Enjoy and let us know how your's turn out! #edgewoodcreamery #familyrecipe #chocolateicecream#NationalIceCreamMonth #dairy #icecream #UndeniablyDairy#DairyGood #Missouri #PurdyMO #chocolatemilk #HomemadeIcecream   We milk our girls twice a day in our swing-22 New Zealand-style parlor. We have 22 milking units, which swing to each side.
On average a cow takes 4 minutes to milk, (in total about 8 minutes per day). Cows enjoy being milked as it relieves the pressure of a full udder. They also get to eat custom-designed feed during milking. Talk about a win, win. Here is a brief timeline on a typical day: 4:00 AM– Wash Cycle- This is the process of cleaning all of our milking equipment on the inside. This is done before and after each milking. 4:15 AM– Set up the milk parlor. (Have everything ready for when the cows enter the parlor). One person is doing this job, while the other is bring in the cows. 4:15 AM– Wake up the girls and bring them into the holding area (where they wait for their turn to be milked).
4:45 AM– Start milking the cows. 5:30 AM– Time to get the second group of milk cows. Bring them to the holding area. (We switch the fencing around so that the girls are ready to go out on fresh pasture). 6:00 AM– Start milking second group of cows. 7:00 AM– Finish milking second group of cows.
We have a milking parlor that holds 44 cows and can milk 22 cows at once. The milking units switch from side to side as each cow finishes milking.
So that entire process takes about eight minutes. About four minutes of that entire process they are actually attached to the milking unit being milked. Our goal is to keep our girls happy and healthy, because happy cows give great milk! Do you have any questions about the milking process?  S U P P O R T F A R M E R S .
D R I N K M O R E M I L K. B U Y R E A L D A I R Y. The dairy industry is struggling right now, BIG time. With milk prices as low as they were in the 80's and feed prices as high as ever, it is terribly hard for us dairy farmers to make ends meet. Now days consumers are pushing for "milk" substitutes without fully understanding the nutritional componets (or lack there of). Milk is nature's most perfect food. Milk’s ingredients and nutrients differ from popular non-dairy options like almond milk, cashew milk, or soy milk. Not all non-dairy options have the same nutrients as the nutrients in milk. For example, an eight-ounce glass of dairy milk provides eight times more naturally occurring protein than the same size serving of almond milk. This country's rural landscapes are changing, with small dairies dropping like flys, and farms going out of business left and right, you the consumer can make a difference. You can choose to buy real dairy. You can choose to buy more dairy. Your choices impact us all. We appreciate all of you who support our small dairy and creamery and we appreciate all of you who support the dairy industry! #drinkmoremilk #edgewoodcreamery #buylocal #supportlocal #buydairy #dairy #dairygood #dairyfarm #dairylife #milk #drinkmilk #milkisgood #PurdyMO #MOagriculture #undeniablydairy  Glass or plastic?
When we began conceplating the idea of bottling milk, we had a divided house about whether to use glass or plastic containers. A few were adamant we use glass because it's perceived by consumers to be a superior product. The plastic side were worried about expenses relayed to our customers. As we researched and researched and researched, we found glass bottles weren't a crystal-clear choice for Edgewood Creamery. The more we dove into glass, the more negative aspects kept shining through to us. Below are our top reasons for not choosing glass: • Reason No. 1 - Price-point for our customers. We produce very high-quality, grass-fed milk which is a premium product, and we felt charging for glass wouldn't be budget-friendly. • Reason No. 2 - Reusability. Typically, glass bottles can only be reused an average of 5 times before they become etched, pitted or broken. We found this to be significantly less environmentally-friendly than recycling plastic containers. • Reason 3 - Chemical use. The chemicals involved to clean and sanitize glass bottles are extremely corrosive dangerous. • Reason 4 - Oxidation of milk. By using glass bottles, milk is at risk for light oxidation. This reaction between light and nutrients in the milk causes essential amino acids to break down. We want to maintain the high-quality milk we work so hard to produce for you! • Reason 5 - Energy usage. It takes more energy to produce glass than plastic and transportation and handling of glass is much more difficult. Thank you for taking the time to read! We understand each business has their own goals and standards, we chose the material we thought would best fit us and our customers! As a side note: plastic from milk bottles is usually recycled into toothbrushes, flowerpots, toys, and consumer products packaging such as, liquid laundry products, household cleaners, shampoos, conditioners and skin care products. #edgewoodcreamery #glassorplastic #plasticcontainers #glassvsplastic #freshmilk #grassfedmilk #grassfedcows #dairy #dairygood #dairyfarm #creamery #PurdyMO #MOagriculture #milkprocessing #gradeA  Who else is ready for spring?! 🙋♂️
As an intensive rotational grazing dairy, grass is the number one source of nutrition for our cows. During the winter months grass growth is pretty much non existent, so what do we do? Well, we feed our cows grass and alfalfa hay. Our cows never get silage, due to the negative effects it has on milk taste and the cheesemaking process. The cows also receive specially formulated grain to keep their diet balanced. Don't you wish you had a personal chef to provide you with the best nutrition possible? #edgewoodcreamery #grassfedcows #dairyfarm #dairylife#dairygood #dairy #milk #grassfedmilk #undeniablydairy #PurdyMO#MOagriculture #readyforspring #grassfed  Chewy Ginger Snap Cookie paired with Edgewood Creamery Cream-line milk. Christmas and cookies go together perfectly, and you can’t eat a cookie without a cold glass of milk to wash it down. Each year the women in our family come together to make batches and batches of cookies for Christmas. We enjoy spending the quality time together and giving platters of cookies and goodies to our friends and neighbors makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside. Giving our homemade treats lets us share our Christmas cheer with others. This year, we baked several batches of cookies well before our norm in preparation of our open house event at the creamery. We hosted Christmas at the Creamery for our second time and it was a huge success. We held farm tours, handed out a lot of hot chocolate and even had a milk and cookies booth. Anytime we have an event on the farm, its takes many days of groundwork, but the reward is well worth it. We enjoy being hospitable and helping to educate our guests about the dairy industry. As a farm family and operators of our own creamery, we work hard all year long, and at times it feels like its all for not. However, each time we host an event we are reminded, that so many people enjoy coming to the farm where they get to experience the farm life for an afternoon. I have had countless people express their appreciation to our family for opening up our farm. They learn so much and greatly enjoy our family’s farm story. Hearing their praise and gratitude and seeing their cheerful smiles as they wave good-bye makes all our effort worthwhile. So next time you sit-down and eat a cookie (or two) with a glass of milk, remember the farmers who work hard all year long to bring them to your table. Wishing you all many thanks and a very Merry Christmas! *** Chewy Ginger Snap Cookie recipe can be found here: ultimate-chewy-ginger-snaps  A cow's tongue is an amazing body part.
A cow only has front teeth on the bottom of their mouth - the top is a hard pad, but no teeth. So in order to eat grass, a cow can't bite it off like a horse, but they must rip it off with their tongue. A cow's tongue is very rough-nearly like sandpaper. When a cow has an itch, she will use her tongue to scratch it. Cows use their tongues for other things too -like licking their calves dry at birth or cleaning out their nose. Edgewood Creamery's Ozark Mountain Blue is a natural rind blue cheese made from our grassfed cow's milk. It is cave aged for 3 months, resulting in a mold covered rind and an interior speckled with blue. The aging of the blue gives the cheese a sweet buttery, cream-like texture, with hints of nuttiness and a savory composition. (Pictured: new blue, just added to the cave).   For traditional cloth-bound cheddars lard is applied to
the outside of the cloth. The cloth and lard allow the cheese to breathe and protect it from damage and excessive weight loss due to evaporation (drying) during aging, as a natural rind forms on the cheese under the cloth. During the course of maturation the lard itself is eaten away by molds, leaving a dry, canvas-like surface in its wake. |
