Raw Sheep Cheese

Raw cheese is made from milk that has not been pasteurized before cheesemaking. But here’s something most people don’t realize: “raw cheese” doesn’t necessarily mean the milk was never heat treated.

Under U.S. regulations, cheese labeled “raw milk” or “unpasteurized” can still be made from milk that has been heated, as long as it stays just below the temperature that legally qualifies as pasteurization. Some 'raw cheeses' sold in grocery stores are made from milk heated to 135°F or even higher.

For example, Organic Valley states that the milk used for its Raw Sharp Cheddar is heated to 158°F for 15 seconds.  For perspective, standard high-temperature, short-time (HTST) pasteurization heats milk to 161°F for 15 seconds. That temperature is just below the low end of pasteurization, so the finished cheese can still be sold as raw cheese. Crazy!

But that's very different from traditional raw-milk cheesemaking, where the goal is to avoid exposing the milk to high heat. Keeping temperatures low helps preserve heat sensitive compounds and beneficial bacteria.

We take this more traditional approach. Our truly raw cheeses are never heated above 110°F during cheesemaking, keeping the milk close to its natural temperature when it leaves the animal and avoiding the much higher heat treatments used in many modern cheesemaking processes.

Our raw cheeses start with high-quality raw milk from pasture-raised cows, goats, and sheep and are crafted using traditional cheesemaking methods. For us, raw cheese isn't just about meeting the technical definition of “unpasteurized.” It's about starting with exceptional raw milk and processing it as little as possible on its journey from pasture to cheese.

Cheese itself is an incredibly nutrient-dense food, providing high-quality protein, calcium, fat-soluble vitamins, vitamin K2, and healthy fats. But we believe the quality of the milk and how it's processed matter, too.

The biggest difference with raw cheese is simple: the milk has not undergone high-heat pasteurization before becoming cheese.

Milk isn't just protein, fat, and calcium. It's a complex biological food containing naturally occurring bacteria, enzymes, proteins, peptides, vitamins, and other bioactive compounds, many of which are sensitive to heat. Pasteurization reduces certain heat-sensitive components, which is one reason we prefer to start with exceptional raw milk and interfere with it as little as possible.

One example is lactoferrin, a bioactive milk protein studied for its antimicrobial, immune-regulating, and gut-supporting properties. Lactoferrin is heat sensitive, and research shows that increasing heat treatment can reduce its concentration and biological activity.

Raw-milk cheeses can also contain a much more diverse microbial community originating from the milk, farm environment, starter cultures, and cheesemaking process. Research has shown that microorganisms consumed in fermented foods such as cheese can make their way through the digestive tract and contribute to the microbial populations found in the gut. 

Raw cheese is one of the best probiotics!

Then there's the fermentation itself. During cheesemaking and aging, microorganisms and enzymes transform milk proteins and fats, producing a huge variety of peptides, fatty acids, and other bioactive compounds while creating the flavors and textures that make traditionally made cheese so incredible.

And raw cheese is still packed with the nutrients that make real cheese such a nutritional powerhouse in the first place, including bioavailable protein, calcium, vitamin K2, and healthy fats (like C15:0).

Of course, the benefits of raw cheese ultimately depend on the quality of the raw milk you start with. That's why ours begins with milk from pasture-raised cows, goats, and sheep, is kept raw during cheesemaking, and is made with traditional animal rennet.

Exceptional milk. Minimal processing. Traditional fermentation. Nutrient-dense cheese.

Raw cheese has been made and consumed for thousands of years, but as with any minimally processed food, the quality of the starting ingredients and how it is produced matter.

Raw cheese is also very different from raw milk. During cheesemaking, the milk undergoes fermentation, acidification, salting, moisture reduction, and often extended aging, all of which change the environment of the milk.

Even the government admits raw cheese is safe when aged for 60 days at 35°F or above.

Most of our raw cheeses are aged for at least 60 days, with some aged much longer. 

We believe safe raw cheese starts with clean raw milk, healthy animals, clean farming practices, careful handling, and skilled traditional cheesemaking.

Milk contains two major types of protein: whey and casein. One of the primary casein proteins is beta-casein, which in cow’s milk can be A1, A2, or a combination of both, depending on the genetics of the cow.

A2 cheese is made from milk containing only the A2 form of beta-casein, rather than A1 beta-casein commonly found in many modern dairy cows. Our cow cheeses come from cows genetically tested to be A2A2, while goats and sheep naturally produce A2-type beta-casein.

So what’s the difference between A1 and A2?

Surprisingly, just one amino acid. At position 67 of the beta-casein protein, A1 contains histidine while A2 contains proline. That tiny structural difference changes how the protein can be broken down during digestion. A1 beta-casein is more susceptible to releasing a bioactive opioid peptide called beta-casomorphin-7 (BCM-7) during digestion, while A2 beta-casein behaves differently.

Research suggests this difference may help explain why some people who experience digestive discomfort from conventional dairy report better tolerance with A2 dairy.
And this distinction is especially relevant when we’re talking about cheese. During cheesemaking, much of the whey is drained away while casein is retained and concentrated in the curd, making the type of casein in the original milk particularly important to us.

That’s why our A2 cheese is made from milk from genetically tested A2A2 cows or A2 goats and sheep. A2 is also considered the ancestral form of beta-casein, before the A1 genetic variant emerged in cattle.

One important distinction: A2 does not mean lactose-free. A2 refers specifically to the type of beta-casein protein in the milk, not its lactose content.

Our raw cow and sheep cheeses are made from 100% grass-fed milk. 

Dairy goats are a little different and require a supplemental feed in addition to pasture and forage to support their high metabolism and unique digestive system. But what’s in that supplemental feed matters. Rather than using conventional or generic non-GMO feeds containing PUFA-rich ingredients like corn, soy, canola, and sunflower, we developed our own custom organic, corn- and soy-free, low-PUFA feed for our dairy goats. This ensures that our milk (and, in turn, our cheese) is free from harmful pesticides and excess polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs), preserving better taste and nutrition.

Grass fed cheese starts with the diet of the animal producing the milk. But first, there’s an important distinction: “grass fed” labels at the store rarely means 100% grass fed. Dairy cows marketed as grass fed may still receive supplemental grain, including corn and soy. That’s why we specifically distinguish our 100% grass-fed cow and sheep dairy from products that simply use the term “grass fed.”

And that distinction matters because what the animal eats influences the composition of her milk, and that milk ultimately becomes your cheese.
Conventional dairy cows are raised in feedlots and are commonly fed corn silage, grains, soy, and other concentrated feeds (often GMO, and grown using pesticides). 

Our 100% grass-fed dairy animals instead rotationally graze diverse living pastures, eating grasses, clovers, forbs, herbs, and other plants throughout the growing season, with hay during the snowy winter months.

Research shows that pasture feeding can measurably change the nutritional composition of milk. Milk from pasture-fed animals has been shown to have different fatty-acid profiles and higher concentrations of certain carotenoids, antioxidants, vitamins, and other plant-derived compounds compared with conventional milk.

And it isn't just grass that matters. The diversity of the pasture matters, too. When ruminants graze a wide variety of plants, they consume a diverse array of health-promoting phytonutrients. Research is increasingly showing that some of these compounds and their metabolites can make their way from pasture → animal → milk, creating measurable nutritional differences.

The cows on our partner farms are rotationally grazed, helping to build healthier soil and more resilient pasture.

Because when it comes to making truly nourishing grass fed cheese, you can't separate the quality of the cheese from the quality of the milk. And you can't separate the quality of the milk from the quality of the pasture.

For centuries, traditional cheesemaking was remarkably simple: milk, salt, starter cultures, and animal rennet.

Rennet is what transforms milk into cheese. It contains naturally occurring enzymes, primarily chymosin, found in the stomachs of ruminant animals. These enzymes act on the casein proteins in milk, allowing the milk to separate into solid curds and liquid whey. The curds eventually become cheese.

But most cheese in America is no longer made this traditional way.

Today, an estimated 80–90% of commercially produced cheese in the United States uses fermentation-produced chymosin (FPC) rather than traditional animal rennet. FPC is produced by genetically engineered microorganisms that have been given the genetic instructions to produce chymosin.

And here's the part most people don't know: Pfizer was one of the pioneers of this technology. In 1990, the FDA affirmed Pfizer's fermentation-produced chymosin preparation as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) for use in food. It helped usher in a completely different way of producing one of the key enzymes used to make cheese.

Instead of extracting the naturally occurring mixture of enzymes from a ruminant stomach like weve done for thousands of years, manufacturers could now have genetically engineered microorganisms produce chymosin through industrial fermentation.

We decided to stick with the old-fashioned way.

Raw milk. Traditional cultures. Animal rennet. Salt.

Sometimes the old-fashioned way really is the better way.

All three can make incredible cheese, but cow, goat, and sheep cheese are naturally different in their color, flavor, fat composition, protein structure, and nutrient density.

Cow cheese tends to be creamier or more golden in color, especially when cows are grazing diverse pastures and nutrient-rich hay like the cows in our farm cooperative. That's because cows retain some of the colorful beta-carotene from the grasses and plants they eat, which can make its way into the fat in the cheese. Cow cheese typically has the most familiar flavor and can range from mild and creamy to extremely sharp depending on how it's cultured and aged.

Goat cheese is naturally much whiter. Goats efficiently convert beta-carotene from pasture into vitamin A (retinol) rather than depositing much of the yellow beta-carotene pigment into their milk fat. Goat dairy also has a different fatty-acid profile, including greater proportions of certain short- and medium-chain fatty acids, which contribute to its characteristic flavor. Goat milk fat also tends to have smaller fat globules than cow milk, another structural difference between the two.

Sheep cheese is also naturally white because sheep, like goats, convert beta-carotene into vitamin A rather than retaining much of the pigment. Sheep dairy is particularly concentrated in fat, protein, calcium, and other milk solids, which is one reason sheep cheese can be so rich, dense, and flavorful. Its fat also contains meaningful amounts of short- and medium-chain fatty acids.

The casein proteins differ between species, too. Our cow cheeses are made exclusively from milk from genetically tested A2A2 cows, while goats and sheep naturally produce A2-type beta-casein.

And because cheese concentrates the fat, casein, minerals, and other components retained in the curd, these differences in the original milk become part of what makes cow, goat, and sheep cheeses so unique.

There isn't one that's “best.” That's exactly why we offer all three. Different animals, different pastures, different cheeses, all made according to the same Nourish standards: raw, A2, traditionally made, and sourced from small regenerative farms.

Yes, but cheese generally contains dramatically less lactose than milk, especially when it is aged.

During cheesemaking, milk separates into curds and whey. Lactose is a water-soluble milk sugar, so much of it leaves with the liquid whey while the fat and casein proteins remain concentrated in the curd. 

The starter cultures then ferment much of the remaining lactose into lactic acid during aging.

So as cheese ages, the amount of lactose continues to decline, which is why many traditionally aged hard cheeses contain negligible amounts of lactose and can often be tolerated by people who don't tolerate milk well.

Most of our raw cheeses are aged for at least 60 days, with some aged much longer. Our Sharp Cheddar, for example, is aged for more than a year.

One important distinction: raw, A2, and low-lactose all mean different things. Raw refers to heat treatment, A2 refers to the beta-casein protein, and lactose is the naturally occurring sugar in milk.

So while we don't consider all of our raw cheeses lactose-free, traditional cheesemaking and aging can drastically reduce the amount of lactose compared with fresh milk.

We’re on a mission to build one of the most diverse, highest-quality raw A2 cheese collections, made with raw milk from cows, goats, and sheep raised on small regenerative farms in the US, not factory farms.

Our collection includes everything from mild, medium, and sharp cheddars to Gouda, Colby, Swiss, Havarti, Monterey Jack, Pepper Jack, mozzarella, feta, chèvre, yogurt cheese, and specialty varieties like garlic & dill, herbal, cranberry, applewood, and jalapeño cheeses. We also offer a growing selection of raw goat cheese and raw sheep cheese, including cheddar, Gouda, Colby, feta, chèvre, and more.

Most of our cheeses are aged for at least 60 days, with some aged considerably longer. Our Sharp Cheddar, for example, is aged for more than a year.

But regardless of the variety, we're incredibly picky about how our cheese is made. Our cheeses are raw, A2, made with traditional animal rennet, and sourced from pasture-raised animals on small farms. Our 100% grass-fed cow and sheep cheeses and our pasture-raised, custom-fed goat cheeses all start with nutrient-rich milk produced to our standards.

You can add individual cheeses to any Nourish order, or make cheese the whole event with our Build Your Own Raw A2 Cheese Box, where you choose your favorites and can order it once or subscribe for recurring deliveries.

Because we don't think choosing better cheese should mean choosing between quality and variety. We want you to have both.

No. Pasture raised beef and 100% grass fed and finished beef are not necessarily the same thing.

Pasture raised describes where cattle live. Grass fed and finished describes what they eat.

Cattle can be raised on pasture for much of their lives and still receive supplemental grain or be moved to a feedlot and grain finished before harvest. So seeing “pasture raised beef” doesn't necessarily mean the cattle ate grass their entire lives.

At Nourish Food Club, we require both. Our cattle are pasture raised AND 100% grass fed and grass finished, grazing grasses and other pasture plants from beginning to end.

And we take it one step further. Our cattle are rotationally grazed using regenerative farming practices, so we're intentionally managing how they move across the pasture, too.

Where they live matters. What they eat matters. And how they're managed on the land matters.