Two weeks ago, Webinar: Judging Standards 2019 filled its registration list faster than we expected and ran well past its scheduled hour on questions. If you missed it, or sat through it half-listening while a make was going on in the next room, here's the short version, plus a heads-up on what's next on the calendar.
What came out of the Judging Standards session
The session walked through how competition judges score entries against the written standard for a category rather than against each other, and why that distinction matters more than it sounds. A wheel doesn't get marked down because the judge next to it happens to prefer a sharper cheddar; it gets marked down against the specific defects and virtues the category description calls out. That's the same discipline the Competition Judge Accreditation credential builds toward, and a few attendees told us afterward that the webinar was what finally made the written standard click for them in a way the printed rubric hadn't. If you're working toward that credential, or thinking about it, the recording is worth a watch even though the live session has passed — ask the Awards & Competition Committee for access.
The question line ran long on one topic in particular: how much weight a judge should give to a defect that's clearly a storage or shipping issue rather than something that happened in the make room. There's no clean answer, which is honestly the more useful takeaway than a tidy rule would have been. Judges are trained to note both possibilities on the scorecard and let the category chair sort out which one it was, rather than guessing under time pressure.
What's next: rennet alternatives in December
Registration is now open for Webinar: Rennet Alternatives 2019 on December 12. It's a virtual session, no cost to attend, and it's aimed at members who are curious about — or already using — coagulants other than traditional animal rennet: the microbial coagulants that have been on the market for decades, and fermentation-produced chymosin, which by some industry estimates now accounts for the large majority of the coagulant used in commercial cheesemaking in this country. If your current supplier relationship has ever left you wondering whether switching coagulants would change your yield, your affinage timeline, or the flavor profile your regulars expect, this is the session to put on the calendar now, while there's still time to gather your own questions.
We're deliberately scheduling it for December rather than trying to squeeze it in before the holidays get busy for everyone. Members who make seasonal cheeses often use the slower stretch between the fall rush and the January calendar to test a process change they've been putting off, and a coagulant switch is exactly the kind of change you don't want to make for the first time during your busiest production month.
Between now and then, if you're weighing whether to attend the December session, a good gut check is whether you've ever hesitated over a coagulant question during a make and just defaulted to what you already had on hand. That hesitation is usually worth turning into an actual question, and December gives you two months to write it down properly instead of trying to remember it live. Course enrollment questions, or requests for the Judging Standards recording, go to the Events Committee; anything specific to coagulants and make-room process belongs with the Education Committee, who helped shape December's agenda.
The International Cheese Federation (ICF) and More Cheese are entirely fictional. This post is demonstration content created for MemberJunction. All people, organizations, events, courses, certifications, figures, and quotations in it are invented, and nothing here represents a real association, a real business, a real person, or real professional advice.