3 days ago
From beer to cheese, Caves of Faribault have a storied history dating back to the mid-1800s
Caves that were once used for making beer in the 1800s are now used for making cheese.
"We have four 21,000-pound vats here. And we roughly pump out 40,000 pounds of cheese a week," Nick Williamette said.
At Prairie Farms in Faribault, Minnesota, a single piece of blue cheese goes on quite a journey.
There are a number of steps, including a filling process and a cutting process.
"We'll run these wire knives through, and they'll make cubes. Back in the days when I started, it was by hand," Williamette, who is a quality assurance manager, said.
Later, the cheese is shoveled out and salted, and that's when the journey takes a darker turn, but not in a bad way.
"They don't think it's an actual cave until I show them," Scott Bucko said.
Bucko is another quality assurance manager and the head cheese historian when it comes to the Caves of Faribault.
Long before there was cheese, there was beer. In 1856, brothers Gottfried and Ernst Fleckenstein carved out the first sandstone cave for their brewery, near the Straight River. But Prohibition eventually ended their dream.
"Then, a few years later, in 1936, a man by the name of Felix Frederiksen emigrated to the United States. He was looking to open up a blue cheese plant," Bucko said.
With a temperature of 54 degrees year-round and high humidity, the caves were a great place to do business for Frederiksen. That's how Faribault became home to the first commercially available blue cheese in the country. Through the years, more and more caves were dug out.
There are 12 caves in all down now, totaling about 50,000 square feet of cave space — and all of it is utilized.
"This is blue cheese right here. See the holes in it? It's pierced in there to allow oxygen," Bucko said while holding a blue cheese wheel.
Blue cheese is cave-aged for 60 days and gorgonzola for 90 days, before they're wheeled off to grocery stores and eventually end up on burgers or in salads. The end of a unique journey that began nearly 100 feet underground.
"There are a number of cheese caves in the United States that will bring cheese in to age it; they don't necessarily make it there," Bucko said. "It makes us very unique and sometimes you kind of forget that."
Faribault Dairy Company, which is now known as the Caves of Faribault, revitalized the caves in 2001 after their doors were closed for eight years.
