Goot Essa Cheese Giveaway (Plus: A Closer Look at Cheese Caves)
We’re doing a cheese basket giveaway for Goot Essa. You can enter to win simply by leaving a comment on this post. I’ll post the winner here Friday.
The assortment that owner John Esh and co. are giving away is called “Amish Tastes” (see below):
From the description:
This medium-bodied cheese trio features a palate-pleasing array of flavors. From our buttery Old German Weissa Kase to our rich and smoky Mountain Home Woodsmoked Cheddar and the savory-sweet Mountain Valley Sharp Cheddar, there’s something for everyone.
It includes the following, and serves 3-4:
Cheeses:
- 4 oz. Old German Weissa Cheese
- 4 oz. Mountain Home Woodsmoked Cheddar Cheese
- 4 oz. Mountain Valley Sharp Cheddar Cheese
Condiments:
- 1.5 oz. Autumn Dawn Apple Butter
- 1.5 oz. Reuben’s Stone Ground Mustard
- 1.5 oz. Sweet & Spicy Dipping Mustard
To enter for a chance to win, just leave a comment on this post. I’ll draw a random winner and announce it this Friday, so be sure to check back.
You can also subscribe in the box at the bottom of this post (free) to make sure you’re notified through our email newsletter.
John Esh on Cheese Caves & Running A Family Business
I put together a video with some excerpts from my extended conversation with John Esh.
John explains cheese caves, different types of cheeses, and the family aspect of his business – something that always seems to be important in Amish businesses.
Check out the video or read the full transcript below. You’ll also see some photos below of the cheese caves from my visit to Goot Essa.
John & Erik Talk Cheese
John Esh of Goot Essa: …So he kept asking me there in the nineties, John, how do you plan to keep your family on the farm? Because I know that you cannot compete on the same scale as a herd that’s 3,000 cows with your 70 cows.
Well, we knew we had a quality product – milk. We came up with the idea – Let’s let’s get some cheese made.
We started selling our cheeses to restaurants, to some cheese shops. And the restaurants, they were looking for some more European-style cheeses, the cheeses with a natural rind.
So we’re talking cheeses like manchego, pecorino, camembert, blue cheese, Gruyere style, the European style, in addition to the cheddars, the flavored cheddars, those types of cheeses. So that’s where we’ve now come, where we have 19 cheeses that we produce.
Cheese Caves
Erik Wesner: What is a cheese cave? What’s that for? Why is that important?
John: Basically, what we have is three different rooms in the side of a hill here close to the mountain, and we encased it in concrete. And the reason for the cave environment is the humidity needs to be about 90%. For the natural rind, the cheese rests on wooden boards.
John: The room is, like, 14 feet wide, 52 feet long is the largest room. The soft cheeses, we have in a much smaller room.
But, again, the the reason for the cave is the high humidity and the cool environment. About 52 degrees, 85% humidity, and that’s where the cheeses will rest on the wooden shelves and develop a natural rind.
After the cheese is brined, we’ll put them on the shelf, and that creates a, like, a hard skin around the outside, and that that will then become a natural rind, which protects the interior of the cheese.
John: And the reason the humidity is so critical is if it gets too dry in the cave, the rind will crack and allow unwanted molds to get inside there.
And the only cheese we want to have be moldy on the inside is the blue cheese. And that one, we probe to allow the oxygen to get inside there. And then it’s also in a separate room. That’s in a separate cave. So that’s one of the three caves.
Erik: So you’ve got to keep it pretty precise there, it sounds like. Someone keeps an eye on that, I guess.
John: Very precise. Yes. In fact, that’s Jacob’s job. He does a really good job with monitoring that humidity and the temperatures in there.
The Milk
Erik: Where does the milk come from, and what kind of milk do you guys use? It’s not all cow milk, is it?
John: That is correct. The cow milk comes from our herd here on the farm. The sheep milk comes from our daughter Sadie and her husband Sam. And then the goat milk comes from another Amish farm family, Henry and Ruta Wengerd.
It really is our mission, is to keep families on the farm. We do what we can to create a market for these farm families.
Family
Erik: And you’re also working with, at least one family member, with your daughter?
John: That is correct. And then our son John is quite involved in the business as well, including quality control and shipping. Our son Jacob is involved in order fulfillment, and then my wife, Anna Mary, makes the fudge, the apple butter.
My niece, Linda, makes the jellies. Then we also have several other children who have been involved, particularly seasonally.
Erik: Sounds like it’s pretty useful to have a big family then.
John: [laughing] Well, there are some advantages. That is correct. And we’ve been blessed. We’ve been really blessed with some really nice children.
Favorite Cheeses
John: The most popular one really is the Mountain Valley Sharp Cheddar. That’s our aged cheddar that we age for three and a half years.
Erik: I had it. I think yeah. Tasty.
John: That’s years. Three and a half years. That’s a that’s a long time. Yes. It is. And it’s you know, there’s a lot of challenges with trying to guess what you’ll need three and a half years down the road.
John: In the gift baskets, a very popular gift cheese is the Old German Weissa Kase. That means “old German white cheese”, and that’s a very popular gift cheese. It’s a nice, creamy – has a creamy mouthfeel, a bit of a tang. It’s not intimidating, and it’s not super assertive.
We do have some that are pretty intense, but the people who buy those perhaps have tasted them before, are familiar with the style and know what they’re getting.
We’re not McDonald’s in any way. This is a handmade artisanal product, so you have some variation batch to batch. But we work hard to make sure that the variation isn’t too great, because the American palate really expects that one experience will be very similar to the next.
John: About 15 years ago, we started putting these in gift assortments. So in addition to making these cheeses and selling, to restaurants and wineries, we now also do gift baskets that we ship nationwide.
We have quite a group of people who have learned to appreciate the value in having some really good cheese along with the condiments packed together in a in a gift assortment.
But here at the shop, we do quite a bit of tastings as well, where people come and they taste the samples and then make their selections, for whatever gifts they want.
But online, we also have a lot of descriptors. So the people who choose to buy online, they can they can see the descriptors quite easily of what to expect from this cheese.
Browse Goot Essa cheese assortments here.
Update: Find the Goot Essa contest winner & more here
For more, see:
Goot Essa Cheese Giveaway
A perfect gift for the holidays! I hope I win but whomever the winner is they will certainly get a very nice gift!
Cheese
Sounds so good!
Cheese drawing
I enjoy reading your daily stories. Merry Christmas an Happy New Year.
Thank you Cheryl! Merry Christmas to you and yours too 🙂
Cheese
I’ve been receiving this newsletter for several years. Thanks for the information. We recently had Amish move in near us.
Glad to hear it Pam. I hope you’re enjoying getting to know your new neighbors!
Cheese
I love reading your magazine I drive for Amish in Minnesota
That’s great Debbie. I bet you have some adventures on that job!
AMISH CHEESE YES!
We moved recently and are several miles away from our favorite Amish community — and sorely miss the foods, shopping, and hotels for our stayovers. Until we get our new travel schedule worked out (which may take a while) we are hungry for our favorite Amish foods. Believe me, if we have a choice between Amish cheese and any other kind of cheese (grocery store? Bah!) Can you help us? SEND CHEESE PLEASE!
🙂 😀 🙂 😀 I hear you Karen!
The Goot Essa cheese article
The humidity controlled cave, so cool so smart.
Amish Cheese is Real Cheese
What I like about Amish Cheese, as cheesy as it sounds, is that it tastes much heartier, richer, and “real”-er than other European-style or European-imitation cheeses. One example I can think of is the difference between cave-aged Gruyere cheese from Gruyere Switzerland and a similar-named product from Wisconsin: you can hardly get the distinctive “Gruyere” taste in the Wisconsin version. With all the Amish cheese I’ve ever had (which is, admittedly, limited), I’m always impressed by the sharpness and strength of their flavors, so that a little goes a long way.
I think you would enjoy listening to John talk cheese Read! 🙂
Goot Essa Cheese Gift Basket
Interesting post. Cheese making truly is a science. And excellent cheese is worth the wait. I would love to win and sample all the goodies in the gift basket!
Cheese
Oh I could just imagine how GPS that is? I’m half German and I’m curious about that kind.
Cheese giveaway
All of your cheeses look delicious
Sounds delicious
The various cheeses sound delicious. I love natural rind cheeses so looking forward to trying their wide variety of cheeses
Goot Essa Cheese
I have wanted to try to Goot Essa cheese for a while now. This would be wonderful.
Erik, I have enjoyed reading your column for years. There’s always something new to read about.
Why thank you, Eileen!
I have heard and read about your business. The next time we are over your way, we plan to stop.
It’s worth the visit, John is very welcoming and going through the cheese tasting is a blast!
Goot Essa Cheese
I enjoy reading your newsletters. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! This would be so fun to win and take to my mother-in-law’s Christmas dinner! Thanks for doing the giveaway!
Glad to hear you enjoy them Kimberly, a very merry Christmas to you!
Cheese, yum
I work with the owner’s niece and she was gracious enough to share some cheese with me and some information. The cheese was delightful and I’d love to see the caves in person!
Great post!
This is “cheesy” post and I’d love to win the cheese prize!
😀 😀 😀
Amish Food
I love Amish food. I was an Amish taxi driver for 3 years before I moved to Florida and had the wonderful opportunity to taste many different types of Amish food. I really miss it!
I hear you on that one, Eileen!
Good Essa
Loved this post. I went to the GE website and the gifts were a tad pricey for my budget. However Im considering one for a Christmas treat. The baskets were beautiful and the cheeses looked delicious. The overall website with recipes was a treat! Merry Christmas
Absolutely, and Merry Christmas Michelle!
Cheese house
I live in mechanicsville Maryland in the center of the Amish community. We have Clover Hill Dairy cheese house here. It is run totally by the Amish, the cheeses are delicious and they have a gift shop with all the cheeses plus baskets set for gift giving. I used to be a driver for 30 years and live in a converted chicken house on Amish farm
I enjoy your posts and have tried many of your recipes
Have a happy and safe holiday
Thank you Merillyn, I’m happy to hear that. I visited your community once, I remember the Amish signs advertising “Queso” to the Spanish-speaking community as well. I remember the day I visited was kind of rainy, a bit like today in NC 🙂
Thanks Amish
Wow they sound so good the cheeses.Iam amazed what the Amish do and how they live .I have them as neighbors and very nice family. They are so impressive on how they live.And very hard workers. The little ones in there hats and coat so adorable. I praise them Thank you for sharing your life style .and great food .
Cheese!
This cheese giveaway sounds great. I would love to be able to try them. I might even be nice and share with my family
:)
All of the cheeses look so delicious! Thank you for doing this giveaway.
This article about Cheese Caves is so insightful–I wouls love to win your give away and have registered for the Catalog
Thank You Joan
Cheese
We love Amish cheese, especially chicken soup flavored cheese.
Great cheese
This cheese sounds wonderful. And all the effort to make it the best it can be! I hope I win so I can give it a try.
This cheese!
I have got to try this cheese. My mouth is watering!
Very interesting video. The Amish homemade cheeses sound wonderfully delicious! I wish I could try all of them! I know they are a high quality product!
Oh how we love Amish cheese! Sadly, we are no longer physically able to travel the distance to Lancaster, Pa. It was our favorite go-to vacation spot!
Cheese giveaway
Good job! A very nice gift!
Cheese giveaway
Lots of great reading on today’s newsletter! And thanks for the cheese giveaway….would love to win it!
I love hearing about the simple life of the Amish. Thank you for having these stories!
I need cheese
Looking for some Amish cheese to share with my Amish neighbors!
Looks very tastey
These cheeses are sure to be a hit under someone’s Christmas tree.
Cheese
Small community based farm and food production is the healthiest and best for the planet. So glad the traditions are continuing.
I’ve learned a lot of interesting and insightful facts and info about the Amish community and way of life from Amish America. Always fun and interesting reading; and enjoyable videos.
Cheese Please
I just started getting your stories, and I look forward to them daily.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
I Like Cheese
Always delicious (LOL) content here. Keep up the good work!
Cheese
Good cheese, pickeled vegetables & pickles along with some smoked summer sausage or other smoked meat makes a delicious snack or meal.
Cheese caves
I am ignorant I guess bur is all cheese made in caves? The cheese looks wonderful!
Cheese Giveaway
I would love to win this beautiful cheese collection!
Cheese Memories. I am in my mid-80s. Grew up in the Holmes County/Tuscarawas County, Ohio area. I recall being with my grandpa at a Swiss cheese makers, in the equivalent of his cheese cave. I was charmed by the aromas in that dark area of long ago. I can almost smell It now. Thanks!
Cheese lover
Thanks for a chance to win.
cheese give away
That gift box looks yummy!
Cheese Assortment Giveaway
What a fascinating industry. And how marvelous to have something the whole family can be involved with AND stay on the family farm. Very rare these days. Thanks very much, Erik, for bringing this to my attention. I’d surely love to win a wonderful gift as this! Have a wonderful day!
Cheese
This is a great article I just might have to buy some
I love a good cheese!
Enter my name in the contest please!
Fantastic Cheese!
These assortments look Great!
I LOVE cheese and these Amish cheeses are the Best!
The pictures are great.
You have a loving touch in your cheese making.
Thank-You!
Larry Rase
Cheese lover here!
I love cheese. Love the article with cheese making facts. So interesting!
Love that cheese!
We visited Goot Essa this past September and sampled most of their cheeses. All were good, and we left with 6 that tackled our taste buds the most. We didn’t see the caves, but may see if we can do that on a future visit. Luckily, my niece lives in the Happy Valley, so we have 2 incentives to go there. If any readers are ever in that part of PA, I heartily recommend a visit.
Love Amish Products
Hello! I love and deeply respect the Amish culture and desire to serve and please the Lord! Their productivity is certainly an excellent role model for us all and I pray for many blessings on them and all of their endeavors!