Made in The Hudson Valley: 5 Spoke Creamery combines handcrafted cheese with a focus on sustainability

Alan Glostoff starts his day riding his bike. That's where the name Five Spoke Creamery originated. It's also about slowing down, taking life, and having a chance to really see what's around you. I've always loved cheese. So my wife and I started this company over 20 years ago. We started producing raw milk cheese. When it's raw milk, you have the natural probiotics that are added back to yogurt, which are good for your digestive system. It has a lot of, you know, flavors that you might not see in pasteurized milk. Really smells good. Believe it or not, if you smell it, it has like notes of pineapple in it. Cheesemaking is an eight-step process, so it starts with receiving the milk, we put it in our cheese vat and heat it, we add cultures, we let the cultures work, they coagulate, and you start to develop curds, and then you start to drain the whey, we put them in molds, behind you is a cheese press, we put it in the cheese press overnight, And then the next day it starts aging. We try and make them a little different from what's out there. When we really crank it out, we could make, you know, like 600 pounds a day. Most cheeses in the store aren't handmade. These are all handmade. Most of it is bought by restaurants, hotels. We do sporting events like the U.S. Open. Open. Allen says his main focus is encouraging the highest standards in cheesemaking while maintaining sustainability throughout the process. From big businesses to small shops, we're highlighting the people making, creating, and building something special right here at home. Join us for Made in the Tri-State Monday at 8 p.m.