Cheese-making a grueling process for Lovera's Italian Market in Krebs

When I arrived at the cheese factory about 10:30 a.m., much of the work on the day's batch of caciocavera was done. Clad in rubber boots, hair nets, backward ball caps and oversized aprons, Shawn, Sam and the crew huddled around a metal trough exchanging ideas, complaints and solutions to the world's problems in a 500-square-foot-room as they produced about 400 pounds of cheese.

Earlier that morning, around 2 a.m., fresh milk from a local Amish dairy farmer was heated to 160 degrees, which took about three hours. Coagulating agents helped separate the milk into curds and whey. Whey is drained off and sold back to local farmers while curds are immediately transferred to a stretcher, which takes us back to about 10:30 a.m.

Sam cuts off hunks of newborn cheese as it squeezes out of a tube not unlike a giant toothpaste dispenser. The cheese is bathed in 160-degree water and carefully spun and molded by hand into large milky teardrops.