The culture team is having a blast and learning a lot at this year’s American Cheese Society Conference in Providence, R.I.! At the end of each day of #ACSCheeseCamp, we’ll break down five cool, quirky, and awesome factoids we’ve found out about in our workshops. Missed yesterday’s post? Take a look!

1. The size of a wheel of traditional English cheddar was originally dictated by how much cheese a farmer could make in a single day.
2. Quebecois cheesemaker Laiterie Charlevoix produces Le 1608,a semi-firm washed-rind cheese, from the milk of the Canadienne cow—a breed originally imported to Canada from Brittany and Normandy in the 17th century whose numbers have fallen from 500,000 in 1900 to fewer than 500 today.
3. Instead of using a liquid rennet solution to coagulate their cheeses, one Basque maker in Spain uses a rennet paste knows as gazta that supposedly provides a firmer set on the cheese.
4. The more empty space in an aging room, the more air circulates and leeches moisture from cheese. How do you preserve moisture if your aging room is stacked full of wheels? Hang a cloth curtain!
5. The University of Vermont used the Freedom of Information Act to find out how often the FDA detected instances of E. coli in domestic and imported cheeses from 2004 to 2006. Their findings? Out of 3,360 cheeses sampled, only 3 tested positive for E. coli.

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