Galactic

Batch 1 Galactic. 65 days. 2023.

Wild Bloomed Rind, Lactic Set Darling

When we finally made it to Bra for Slow Cheese the raw milk Robiola were a revelation. No precious, mono rinds there! But it’s common knowledge that if you want to make lactic cheese in the states you’ll have to pasteurize the milk… Yet there they were, so we had to try.

Back home, challenge accepted! Our first attempts were too small to age out, but we kept at it. 2020 was a good season to try and try again, and they were delicious if not practical.

The right forms were key, and without aggressive adjuncts — just our autochthonous starters, Galactic takes time to ripen, easily reaching the 60 day mark.

These wild things are dense and fudgy with a ripe layer beneath glorious croste di formaggi, a white fluffy coat dappled with blue, grey, and even the dun molds one might have found on a brie from 150 years ago.

Galactic is not mild, not innocuous. When just ripe, we taste bacon and sour cream, pine duff, love. Like rind? This one bites back.

We pull 250 pounds of milk off of the big vat, making just 30 pounds of Galactic every other week. There isn’t much of it, but it is worth seeking out. We send what we can to shops with wicked cheese geeks at the helm, I take it to our local farmers markets, and some folks come out to the creamery to get their wedge.