By Joe Kastner
Last week, a team of our Cheese Shop staff had the awesome opportunity to do some cheesemaking with our friends up at Alemar Cheese Company in Northeast Minneapolis. Located in the Food Building, along with Lowry Hill Provisions and Baker’s Field Flour & Bread, Alemar is definitely the creamery closest to France 44, which makes for a great working relationship. We get their cheese delivered along with bread and salami from the same building, and when we need cheese in a pinch, Alemar is our first call! Head Cheesemaker Charlotte Serino has been with the company since 2021, and we are very grateful that she invited us to come make cheese with her!
Apricity has become one of our favorite soft cheeses at the shop, and for good reason! Charlotte just started making this cheese last fall, and it has already gained a lot of buzz. Apricity most recently won Best in Class at the 2023 American Cheese Society Awards, giving it national recognition along with our local appreciation. The name Apricity means “the warmth of the sun in winter”, which I think is just a perfectly romantic name for a new cheese to represent Minnesota.
Apricity is a “lactic-set” cheese, which works a little different than your typical curdy, rennet-set cheeses. This technique is seen frequently in goat’s-milk cheeses, which is where Charlotte learned it. Apricity uses very little rennet to coagulate the milk, instead relying on natural acidification and fermentation over a longer period of time to transform the milk into a smooth, creamy curd. This gives the cheese a great brightness and tangy flavor, along with an almost ricotta-like texture. To turn this curd into cheese, we as a team got to salt the curd, mix it up, and then scoop it into snowball-sized spheres and roll into perfect orbs.
The batch that we helped make is now on sale at our shop!
We thank Charlotte and the Alemar team for inviting us in and showing us around. Connecting with local, talented cheesemakers is one of the best parts of working in a small cheese shop, and seeing how cheese is made and where it comes from can only help us be better stewards of their products! If you’re looking for a new softy to fall in love with this fall, come give Apricity a try!