Company description

Crown Finish Caves is seeking an apprentice. We are a licensed dairy processing plant located in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY that specializes in aging cheese. No milk is processed on site. Rather, we work directly with artisan producers to receive their cheese when it is freshly made, "green" cheese. We strive to age the cheese for the optimum amount of time, which is anywhere from a couple weeks up to a year plus depending on the style. We market the cheese and sell it here in NYC, as well as to specialty shops across the country.

Our facility is located in a mid-19th century brewery that was operational until Prohibition. 30 feet below street-level are the original, arched-brick "lagering" tunnels where beer fermented over one hundred years ago. We have renovated one tunnel and retrofitted it with a modern climate control system to create a stable and ideal cheese-aging environment. Currently, we are aging a wide variety of cheeses from small-format, soft-ripened washed rind and bloomy rind to large-format Alpine styles and cheddars. We are aging cheese made from cows’ milk, goats’ milk, sheeps’ milk, mixed milks, and even water buffalo milk. We work directly with producers in the Northeast, Wisconsin, as well as one family farm in Italy.

Internship description

The apprentice will have the opportunity to work directly with all the afore-mentioned cheeses and will therefore learn a wide variety of affinage (cheese aging) practices and techniques. We are constantly doing R&D on cheeses and experimenting with different techniques, so you will take part in this process as well. Primary responsibilities are caring for and maintenance of cheeses. This includes flipping, brushing, applying ash, and washing cheeses with brine solutions, culture solutions, and alcohol solutions. You will also learn about and take part in:

• Receiving and processing large shipments of green cheeses
• Cleaning, wrapping, and packaging cheese for sale
• Routine environmental swabbing and food safety logging
• Mixing and preparing ripening culture solutions
• Daily coffee breaks involving extensive cheese tastings and rumination

We work with a variety of raw and pasteurized milk cheeses and age most of them on wooden boards. As a result, in order to work with us, you must have an incredible attention to detail regarding sanitation protocol and cross contamination potential at all times. Food safety is paramount to our operation.

This apprenticeship will demystify the romantic vision of affinage. This apprenticeship is incredibly physical, and the tasks are very tedious and repetitive. You will experience the everyday realities of working in a commercial dairy processing plant and have the opportunity to be a part of a small but rapidly growing cheese-aging business in the heart of the country's greatest artisan cheese market. Experience in the cheese industry is not necessary but certainly helpful. All we require is a profound passion for cheese.

Qualifications:

• Ability to work on your feet, lift 50+ pounds, bend low and reach high. This is a physical job. You also must be able to carefully handle small, delicate, fragile cheeses.
• Good interpersonal and customer service skills. Cheesemongering experience a plus.
• 1 day of weekday availability, Wednesdays.

Compensation:

We will provide transportation (via pre-loaded metro card) and access to exclusive events held at the cave and elsewhere (such as wine, beer and cheese tastings, private parties and educational events that we are associated with).

Trial Period: 1 work day - the apprenticeship will last 3 months +/-

Compensation

this position is: barter

Application instructions

Deadline

no deadline