Farmer Rudolph

Farm Fresh

cheeses and yogurts

Our Story:

Farmer Rudolph’s is a small old fashioned family based cheese and yogurt business in southern Lebanon County PA. Our cheese making began with a suggestion from a friend that cheese making might be a fitting vocation for our family. Being lovers of good quality artisan cheeses and yogurts the suggestion stuck with us, we began making cheese in our kitchen and seriously contemplating making delicious, cheeses and yogurts for our local community and beyond. Living in dairy rich country where good quality milk abounds, our prospect grew into what has become Farmer Rudolph’s Farmstead Made cheeses and yogurts. We are passionate about producing good quality products that are naturally nutritious, delicious and healthy.

Our facility is certified Grade A. Located on “Weaver Steiner Farm” which produces some of the finest quality milk. We use fresh milk produced by the rBST free herd of cows on “Weaver Steiner Farm” only to make all of our cheeses and yogurts. All our cheeses and yogurts are 100% natural, no artificial ingredients flavors or colors, no artificial anything. All our products are made right here on the farm where we live. We make our products for you just like we prefer them for our family.

We believe that the key to making really good cheeses and yogurts is using the freshest top quality milk, using good equipment designed for the job, giving careful attention to detail, maintaining a clean sanitary facility and operation along with having the right aging environment for the cheese.

About our cheese

Dutch style Gouda cheese. That’s what we are starting out with. Cheeses made in Holland are known around the world for their exceptional quality and flavor. We use their equipment and techniques to produce Farmer Rudolph’s Gouda cheese. Our equipment: cheese vat, cheese press, cheese molds (in which the cheese wheels are formed) and even our wooden aging shelves were all build by C Van’t Riet, a manufacturer of high quality cheese making equipment for the small producer in the Netherlands.

The cheese making day begins with an early start in the morning. Filling the cheese vat with fresh milk from the farm. Bringing the milk to the right temperature we mix in the cultures. After the cultured milk ripens we add cheese rennet to coagulate (curdle) the milk.

After the milk has properly coagulated, we begin the curd cutting and stirring cycles. This separates the whey from the curds. The whey is drained intermittently. Hot water is added and more whey is drained off until the last of the whey is drained from the curds.

Then the cheese (curd) is placed into molds and pressed. This squeezes out the remaining whey from the cheese and forms it into the wheel shape of the mold.

Then after pressing the cheese it is placed into brine, which neutralizes the activity of the cheese cultures and stabilizes the flavors the cheese is known for. Then the cheese wheel is brought out of the brine and left to dry before a food grade coating is applied to seal off the cheese. Then the wheel is placed on wooden shelving in a controlled environment in the aging room, some for up to two years.

Our Gouda cheese flavors are:

Rudolph’s Baby Gouda aged a minimum of 3 mo.
Rudolph’s Smoked Gouda
*Rudolph’s Caraway
*Rudolph’s Garden Herb Mélange
*Rudolph’s Honey Clover
Rudolph’s Matured Gouda aged a minimum of 6 mo.
*Rudolph’s Extra Matured Gouda aged a minimum of 9 mo.
*Rudolph’s Gartomae
*Rudolph’s Jalapeño Blend

The flavors with the asterisk are not ready yet, our goal is to have all of these flavors available by late 2017.

About our yogurt:

We are as passionate about making quality yogurts as we are about cheese. Our smooth full-bodied, flavor rich yogurts are sure to please the palate and to satisfy your hunger nutritiously.

Yogurt consumption has increased more than a hundred ten percent over the last decade. Yogurt has become a meal replacement, a breakfast food instead of a snack or diet food. Our family likes the European style yogurts, so, naturally that is the style of yogurt we have chosen to produce for you. Instead of incubating the yogurt in cups (a conventional yogurt making method) European style yogurts are incubated in stainless steel vats. All the ingredients, berries, flavors etc. are mixed into the yogurt in the vat before filling the pint or quart size containers.

Our yogurts are made with 100% natural simple ingredients, just like we prefer making them for ourselves. We use no stabilizers such as Food Starches, Pectin, Gum, or Gelatins in our yogurts. We have purposed to make yogurts that are flavor and protein rich, yogurts that are Healthy, Naturally Delicious and Nutritious.

Our yogurt flavors are:

Banana Nut
Black cherry
Blueberry
Natural Maple
Plain
Raspberry
Strawberry
Vanilla Butterscotch

Handcrafted vs Mass Production

Do you feel better about eating quality cheeses and yogurts that are made the old fashioned way, using only the freshest milk? Are you looking for pure, natural, healthy dairy products made by hand and cared for like in the olden days, before the days mass of production? Dairy products that are free from artificial colors, artificial flavors, and many questionable ingredients? At Farmer Rudolph’s we are committed to making 100% natural artisan cheeses and yogurts that taste good, and are good for you.

Unlike large factories that daily make the cheeses, yogurts and other dairy products by the truck loads using highly automated systems from start to finish, giving little personal care to the products being produced, often with milk that was stored in tanker trailers and silos for days before being processed.

Farmer Rudolph’s like most other artisan cheese and yogurt makers is capable of making only small amounts with very little automation in the process. The artisan cheese maker typically has a power agitator on the vat to stir the curd, but from there the cheese production is manual. Our cheese curd is cut by hand, the cheese is lifted from the vat by hand and placed into the molds for pressing. During and after pressing we take the cheese out of the molds and turn it (upside down) to ensure uniform pressing and whey expulsion. At Farmer Rudolph’s we then place the cheese into a brine bath, at 24 hrs. we flip the cheese in the brine and leave it there for another 24hrs. The cheese is then placed on wooden cheese shelves to dry before we apply several coats of food grade coating, a coating process that takes several days from start to finish. After this we turn the cheese upside down daily for a month after which we turn it every other day to ensure uniform aging of the cheese.

All this work is done by hand giving careful attention to each cheese wheel daily during the entire aging process until it is sold and leaves the controlled environment aging room. The specialty cheeses of the artisan cheese maker do not lend themselves well, if at all, to automated processes.

Farmer Rudolph’s Grade A yogurts are also made with little automation in the process requiring lots of manual labor until it reaches the shelves of the grocery stores.

Our Goal:

We hope to add other artisan cheeses as the business grows, as well as continue finding ways to make our current cheeses and yogurts even better with only pure, simple natural ingredients.

Our Markets:

We do not have a retail store. We market our products wholesale only, except for online sales, anyone can email orders to us for cheese and we will ship it to you.

Store owners and distributors, please email us for wholesale pricing.

How to buy:

Please email your orders to food@farmerrudolphs.net or call (315) 286-1995

We cut the cheese into approximately 1 pound wedges. The retail price is $10.95 plus shipping.