Spring Gap Mountain Creamery

Spring Gap Mountain Creamery Spring Gap Mountain Creamery produces handmade, artisanal, raw cow's milk cheeses. Our 32-acre farm is located in Paw Paw, West Virginia.

We buy our milk directly from Triple E Farm in Romney, West Virginia.

Last Market of the year:  As hard as it might be to believe, the 2024 cheese making season in coming to an end this Satu...
10/25/2024

Last Market of the year: As hard as it might be to believe, the 2024 cheese making season in coming to an end this Saturday with our final market at Mt. Pleasant in Washington DC! There will be grilled cheese sandwiches, a final batch of Mozzarella, great cheese pairing advice, and not a few tearful goodbyes. Maybe not as dramatic as all that, but it will definitely be a good chance to stock up for the winter! Vacuum sealed cheeses will last up to three months in the fridge, about three weeks once they are opened. I hope to see you there tomorrow and will leave you with some photos of a batch of brie being made from start to finish. Enjoy.

Farm Report, Issue  #78, Volume 12:  It is still hot and dry in Paw Paw, and no matter how carefully we fence the garden...
08/19/2024

Farm Report, Issue #78, Volume 12: It is still hot and dry in Paw Paw, and no matter how carefully we fence the garden, hungry critters have marauded their way through tomatoes, watermelons, peppers, and beans. Anything that is even slightly green has been gobbled up in the night by rabbits, groundhogs, and deer. The one exception has been from the established fruit trees on the farm - deep roots and a thriving colony of bees have insured a bumper crop of peaches, pears, and apples (though there are a few months left until the latter are ready). Please enjoy these reporter submitted photos of bounteous fruit harvests and furry pets coping with the withering temperatures as best they can. Dog days of summer indeed!

First batch of Cheddar of the year!  Coming to a market near you this weekend (if you happen to live near Silver Spring,...
07/24/2024

First batch of Cheddar of the year! Coming to a market near you this weekend (if you happen to live near Silver Spring, MD or Mt. Pleasant, DC)! Enjoy the picture of the completed label next to its real life inspiration: Sophie the dog. Tasting notes: enjoy with medium bodied red wine, stone fruit, crusty bread, squirrel.

07/05/2024

...and we are back: another successful vacation on the coast of Maine is in the books. Your cheese-maker is recharged and ready to produce the late summer cheeses to get you through the steamy heat of the Washington DC area in July and August. Feta Watermelon Mint Salad? I can do that. Tomato Mozzarella and Basil? You better believe it! You are telling me that you have high end air conditioning and want to recreate a wintery Swiss evening with a piping hot Gouda/Tomme Fondue, power bills be damned? I can help you there too! Check us out at Farmer's market in Silver Spring, and at Mt. Pleasant this Saturday.

The first batch of cheddar has been made - please enjoy this photographic journey through the wonders of cheddar making:...
05/10/2024

The first batch of cheddar has been made - please enjoy this photographic journey through the wonders of cheddar making: from the euphoric highs of final pressing to the soul shattering lows of manual cheddaring, all interlaced with long stretches of tedium punctuated by bursts of stress and worry. I would like to think that a little piece of the cheesemaker's epic physical and emotional pilgrimage ends up in every slice of cheese enjoyed by the consumer. Now we have to wait. In six months the first cheddar will be ready to try (though a year would be better). Expect them at farmer's market some time in November.

The strategic cheese stockpile is gradually filling up - Gouda, Tomme, Blue, Feta, and Brie are aging along nicely.  Pre...
04/29/2024

The strategic cheese stockpile is gradually filling up - Gouda, Tomme, Blue, Feta, and Brie are aging along nicely. Prepare to see them at a market near you sometime this summer. In other news, rumor has it that our first batch of cheddar for 2024 is slated for next Monday, I will fill you all in as I learn more. In the attached pictures you can see two batches of Brie, one at two weeks, covered in a snow-white pillowy layer of penecillium candidum mold, and the other is still the pale yellow of the spring milk it was made from four days ago, and naked as the day it was born (I urge the faint hearted among you to avert your eyes! Cheese making is not for the weak of constitution). The food grade buckets each contain three 12 lbs wheels of Feta floating in brine and whey. In the second picture wheels of blue cheese and tomme at various ages, from two weeks to three months.

First Markets of the year this Saturday!  Come out to Mt. Pleasant in DC , or Silver Spring, MD, for some of our earlies...
04/05/2024

First Markets of the year this Saturday! Come out to Mt. Pleasant in DC , or Silver Spring, MD, for some of our earliest cheeses of the season. This week we will have a young winter milk Tomme, as well as our buttery brie, delicate cow's milk Feta, robust blue, and even a first batch of Mozzarella (which will be less than 15 hours old by the time it hits market at 9am tomorrow). Hope to see you all there and we are looking forward many happy cheese eaters over the season to come!

Spring time in Paw Paw, the Paris of West Virginia:  As a steady supply of cheese is accumulating in the aging rooms of ...
03/16/2024

Spring time in Paw Paw, the Paris of West Virginia: As a steady supply of cheese is accumulating in the aging rooms of the creamery, so too are the farm animals seeing to the expansion of their own kind. Seven lambs have been born over the last couple weeks, effectively turning the page on a slow and grey winter: as these little woolly streaks of lightning gambol through the greening pastures, they bring a life and energy to the herd that is a sure sign that spring is here. Our Rooster, Re*****on Steele, has also been busy: six little chicks are scratching through the straw looking for bugs. Rounding out the new arrivals are a half dozen Pekin ducklings. In short, we are experiencing a cuteness overload at Spring Gap Mountain Creamery!

A Rare Thing:  Having been a Cheese Maker for almost 15 years now, there remains one deep rooted mystery at the very cor...
02/29/2024

A Rare Thing: Having been a Cheese Maker for almost 15 years now, there remains one deep rooted mystery at the very core of my chosen profession: at what precise point does ordinary milk become that magical substance known as cheese? Is it when we add culture to the milk that the spark is transferred? Does the introduction of rennet transform the cultured milk into finished fromage? Or perhaps it is only after the pressed wheel has been aging for many carefully tended months? Well, wonder no more, in perhaps a world's first, I have captured in high definition photographic glory, the exact moment a mere pressed milk product has become a fully formed cheese! Our first batch of 2024 Tomme becomes cheese, before and after pictures, at 3:43 pm on Tuesday, February 27th. Behold!

Gearing up for Cheese-making Season 2024!  Getting the Cheese House shipshape for the first load of milk (slated for Feb...
02/18/2024

Gearing up for Cheese-making Season 2024! Getting the Cheese House shipshape for the first load of milk (slated for February 27th). Until then, everything needs to be scrubbed down, sanitized, inspected and cleaned again. Clean, clean, and then clean some more. At Spring Gap Mountain Creamery our slogan is: Everybody likes cheese, nobody likes foodborne illness! Catchy!

We have reached the end of the 2023 Cheese-making Year!  I hope you have not only enjoyed our cheeses,  but have also ha...
11/11/2023

We have reached the end of the 2023 Cheese-making Year! I hope you have not only enjoyed our cheeses, but have also had a good time at weekend farmer's markets: chatting, sampling, and checking out the produce and products that change with the seasons (Special note: while I love all of our customers equally, I am especially touched by our regulars who swing by just to tell me that they do not need any cheeses this weekend but just wanted to stop by to say hi). I hope you have a wonderful winter and look forward to seeing you all again in the spring. If anybody needs to find me in the meantime, I've gone fishing.
-Jürgen

Newsflash: 2023 Cheese season winding down, cheese-maker prepares for winter hibernation!  You heard it here first, anot...
10/26/2023

Newsflash: 2023 Cheese season winding down, cheese-maker prepares for winter hibernation! You heard it here first, another season is in the books. We will be attending the Silver Spring market for another two weekends (cheese stockpile permitting), so this is your last chance to squirrel away some Gouda, Blue, Feta, or Brie for the off season.
Many of you have asked me what Penny has been up to these last two years of retirement and, as any beginner's writing workshop will try to teach you, showing is more effective than telling (which they tell you, rather than show you, ironically)- Enjoy the flowers!

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Paw Paw, WV
25434

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