The Cheese Cave: A Day in the Life of a Brooklyn Cheesemaker (36 photos)

Sam Frank, an affineur who oversees cheese aging at Crown Finish Caves in Brooklyn, documented his daily routine to give us a rare look behind the scenes of craft cheesemaking. Sam has been working with dairy products ever since his college days in Vermont. Today, he helps manage the aging process for 25,000 pounds (around 11,000 kg) of cheese inside a dark 19th-century cellar hidden deep beneath the streets of Brooklyn.







In addition to capturing the aging process—where he and his team flip, wash, and salt wheels of cheese—Sam snapped a series of mouthwatering close-ups of the finished products. He also documented rooftop activities where the staff harvests organic honey, and wrapped up the day at an evening gala in Prospect Park where their cheeses were served. Along the way, the cheesemaker shared insights on the history of the cellar, the surprising role of cheese mites, and how he stumbled into this wonderfully fragrant world of artisanal cheesemaking.











Here is Sam Frank’s walkthrough of how his day went:

“First, I grabbed coffee at the office with my coworkers to talk through the schedule. Then I headed down into the cellars to check on the aging cheeses. In the afternoon, we all took a break to go up to the roof for coffee and cheese, and to tend to the beehives.



Later, I went back down to the cellars to wrap up work with the cheeses, followed by a long cleanup session. We spend a lot of time cleaning. That evening, there was a charity event at the Prospect Park Boathouse where we served cheese platters under the Whole Foods banner. There were plenty of great cocktails, too.











Funny enough, I got into cheesemaking after getting kicked out of the University of Vermont. My former dorm RA was working at a nearby farm making farmstead cheddar and hired me as an assistant cheesemaker.











Why cheese? Right on the first page of his seminal work *American Farmstead Cheese*, Dr. Paul Kindstedt of the University of Vermont offers an answer: ‘The extraordinary diversity of cheese flavors, textures, aromas, and visual appearances defies the imagination, especially considering that the starting point for all cheese is simple milk—a bland, unremarkable liquid.’



The cellar can hold around 25,000 pounds of cheese at a time. Most cheeses—except for those meant to be eaten fresh—need to age anywhere from a few days to several years, depending on the variety. The ideal environment for aging cheese is cool and damp—essentially a cheese cave. Ours is located in an old lagering cellar about 30 feet (9 meters) beneath a long-defunct brewery that operated from the mid-19th century until Prohibition. Over a century ago, beer aged here. Today, it’s cheese. Caring for aging cheese is known as affinage, and the person doing it is an affineur.



My daily duties include flipping wheels, brushing them, washing rinds, and doing a mountain of cleaning. Flipping ensures moisture remains evenly distributed throughout the cheese as it matures. Brushing or washing controls the growth of specific rind bacteria while encouraging others—all depending on the variety you're working with. And cleaning is endless because food safety is everything in dairy production.



Yes, those are real cheese mites in the photos. They're a specific species of mite that thrives on aging cheeses. A big part of the job involves brushing them off. Truth be told, they actually impart a pleasant earthy or woody aroma to certain cheeses.



Right now, Crown Finish Caves has a team of six, including the owners, a husband-and-wife duo. Two of us focus mainly on affinage, but everyone pitches in on everything.









My bosses have kept bees on the roof for years. They were adding frames to an active hive—the protective suit guards against stings and helps smoke the bees out.

















Every third Thursday, we hold 'Third Curdsday.' We bring a whole bunch of cheeses to a local bar, and people hang out, drink beer, and eat cheese. We pick a different spot every time, but we usually try to stay within our neighborhood of Crown Heights in Brooklyn.”