When I went to that Cheese competition a few months ago, the best in show was a Beecher cheddar. That new cheese book that I bought has a recipe in it for Just Jack, which the cheese maker at Beecher cheese gave the recipe to the author in a 1 gallon batch. I am going to make it tomorrow, in a 4 gallon batch. I am going to make a 2lb pepper jack and a 2lb Just Jack from it. I make a good pepper jack, but it needs to be a little moister and creamier. (It’s all about improvement until it’s perfect, in your opinion.)

This one calls for a cup of heavy whipping cream per gallon of milk. That should help with the creamy part. It also has the curds cut a little larger, and it presses at lighter pressure. I am excited to try it.

I bought a piece of Beecher Marco Polo at the grocery store while ago.                http://store.beechershandmadecheese.com/p-35-marco-polo-1-lb.aspx

They only had two Beecher’s and the other one is called “No Woman”. I tried that at the cheese competition and I didn’t like it. It has Jamaican jerk spice in it.

The Marco Polo has green and black pepper corns.

and it’s delicious. A one year old cheddar with black and green pepper corns. My husband loves pepper.

“heavy whipping cream” ? the ones in the store here are heavy with addatives.

I agree, and they are ultra pasteurized. I buy my raw milk from a one man farm. I talked to him the other day and he said that if you take a gallon of raw milk and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight, it will separate, and then you can squeeze the jug and the cream comes out of the top. He said that his wife whips this up for whip cream.

He does not remove the cream from his milk and then add it back in to control his fat level, so the cream is still in his milk.

I guess if you remove the cream from one gallon of his milk, you’d have skim milk left in the bottom.

If it needs more cream then I add more 18% cream then the 2%. In my area thats the ballance points at least processing.