The staff at WW Homestead Dairy’s plant in Waukon makes the company’s popular cheese curds. (Photo: WW Homestead Dairy)
By Jane Burns
Copy Editor and Staff Writer
Sometimes, customers come into WW Homestead Dairy in Waukon carrying a little secret. They want cheese curds, and they’re big fans of the ones the award-winning creamery has been making since 2011.
The secret they’re a little sheepish to share? They’re from Wisconsin.
“We do have a lot of people come over from Wisconsin to buy cheese curds,” said Liz Murphy, a member of one of the families who owns and runs the business. “They don’t always want to admit it.”
When it comes to cheese curds, WW Homestead Dairy has more than held its own against America’s Dairyland. This summer, curds from the small northeast Iowa operation took top honors in the flavored cheese curd category from the American Cheese Society — the Oscars of cheese. A variety of WW Homestead curds, as well as other products, have won other awards over the years.
“Most of the flavors of curds have won an award at either the American Cheese Society, the Iowa State Fair or the World Dairy Expo,” Murphy said. “Most years we’ve been able to come away with awards from somewhere.”
WW Homestead Dairy is a family business — two families, actually, founded by Tom Walleser and two brothers, Tom and Paul Weighner. The business now extends to the next generation: Murphy, the daughter of Tom and and Angela Weighner, works with food safety and marketing for the dairy; her sister Steph Iverson and her husband, Marshall, run the family farm seven miles outside of Waukon; and another sister, Abby Weighner, is the plant manager.
Plant manager Abby Weighner follows correct food safety protocols. That includes putting on her daughter Ren’s first hairnet when it was time to check something in the dairy’s production area. (Photo: Jane Burns)
Besides cheese curds, WW Homestead also makes and sells ice cream (more than 40 flavors over the years). Its milk — whole, 1%, skim and chocolate — is “creamline,” which means it’s pasteurized but not homogenized and the cream rises to the top of the bottle (and is perfect to add to coffee). The dairy also makes and sells butter and cottage cheese. Sensing a need in the community, WW Homestead also expanded its retail store and ice cream parlor to add a coffee shop in 2017.
But it’s the cheese curds that reign supreme. They come in 13 flavors, including plain cheddar and the Mango Habanero that the American Cheese Society singled out in the flavored cheese curd category at this year’s annual contest. It was no fluke; in 2017, WW Homestead took top honors with its Chipotle Morita and second with Jalapeno Ranch, while taking top honors at the Iowa State Fair with a Bloody Mary version.
WW Homestead Dairy’s cheese curds: Mango Habanero, left, and Bloody Mary. (Photo: Michael Morain)
The flavors vary from year to year, and this year when WW Homestead hosted its first Curd Fest at its business, they held a flavor contest. From 50 to 60 suggestions, the dairy’s staff chose five finalists for a customer taste test. The winner was Midwest Howdy,a barbecue ranch version that was sold during June (Dairy Month) and will probably return for the holidays.
At capacity, the plant can make 3,000 pounds of cheese curds a week. WW Homestead has a Cheese Curd Club, whose subscribers receive a bag of regular cheddar curds and a bag of flavored curds sent monthly, packed with ice in an insulated container and mailed with two-day shipping. They also ship their cheddar, flavored cheddar and Colby cheeses, as well as butter and cottage cheese. The dairy has shipped to all of the lower 48 states.
The key to it all? Fresh milk from the two farms. Even the curds that are shipped from the dairy could be freshly made that day, with the “oldest” being cheese made on Friday and shipped on Monday.
“You’re not going to get curds that fresh at the grocery store,” Murphy said.
The dairy is a busy place, offering tours of the plant — complete with a viewing window so visitors can watch curds or ice cream being made — and the farms. The tours are popular with school kids, FFA and 4-H groups. WW Homestead also hosts community events, including a car show, a drive-in “moo”-vie night and holiday visits from Santa and baby calves.
“The kids are more excited to see the baby calves than they are to see Santa,” Murphy said.
So what’s with the squeak?
Yes, cheese curds squeak. For some people, that’s the appeal. For others, that’s … well … weird. But it’s important because that means the cheese curds are fresh. They’re the opposite of aged cheddar; they’re baby cheddar, just hours or days old.
According to the Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin, the marketing arm of the state’s dairy industry: “Cheese curds are made up of proteins that are bound together with calcium. When you bite into a cheese curd, this protein and calcium structure rubs against the enamel on your teeth, making a squeaking sound.”
After a few days, the calcium-protein bonds break down. When the squeak ends, the cheese is still fine; it just means it isn’t quite as fresh. And you can resurrect the squeak. Microwaving them for just 3 to 5 seconds (don’t melt them) or setting them out at room temperature might revive the squeak.
Of course the best way, WW Homestead Dairy’s Murphy says, is just to come to their retail store and buy them on the day they’re made (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays). Some customers, though, have their own ideas.
“I’ve had people tell me they take them back to Florida and freeze them,” she said. “I ask, ‘Are they good?’ They say, ‘Yeah,’ but I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t tell people to freeze them. But you do whatever you’ve got to do to get your cheese, I guess.”
Jane Burns is a Wisconsin native who has been eating squeaky cheese curds since her dad started taking her to factories when she wasn’t much taller than the vats they were made in. Besides the curds, she also recommends WW Homestead Dairy’s Maple Bacon ice cream, particularly at 9:30 in the morning.
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