For farmstead and small artisan creameries
Cheese make sheets and aging-room logs your dairy inspector can read
Make Log is a cheese make sheet app for farmstead and small artisan creameries that records every vat from milk lot to yield and tracks each wheel batch on its shelf until it can be released. Pull up any record in seconds when the state inspector or a buyer asks.
No card needed for the trial. Plans from $12 a month.
| Step | Time | °F | pH |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warm milk | 7:10 | 88 | 6.62 |
| Add culture | 7:25 | 88 | 6.60 |
| Add rennet | 8:20 | 89 | 6.52 |
| Cut curd | 9:05 | 89 | 6.45 |
| Drain whey | 10:40 | 100 | 6.30 |
24 wheels · 118 lb · earliest release Dec 13, 2026
The make sheet
The vat sheet, without the clipboard
Your recipe's steps become a checklist on the phone in your apron. Log each step's time, temperature and pH as you go; the sheet keeps the milk lot, cultures and rennet with it. When the wheels come out of the press, add the count and the weight and the yield works itself out.
Wet hands are fine: big buttons, short forms, nothing to install.
Paper today
Where cheese records go missing
Most small plants keep their make sheets on paper and their aging room on a whiteboard. It works until someone asks to see it.
- Soaked clipboards
- The make sheet lives on a clipboard by the vat. It gets wet, gets lost, or ends up in a binder nobody can search when the inspector asks about one vat.
- Chalk on the shelf
- The 60-day hold for raw-milk cheese is tracked by memory or a chalk mark, so the release date of a batch is hard to prove.
- A whiteboard care schedule
- Flips, rubs and washes run off a whiteboard. Batches get missed, and nobody can show who turned what, and when.
- Binders for a traceback
- Tracing a bad wheel back to its milk lot and its pH curve means paging through a season of paper.
What it keeps
Make room to cave, one record
A digital cheese make sheet
Start from your recipe's steps and log time, temperature, pH and TA as you go, from a phone or tablet in the make room. Milk lots, volume, cultures, rennet, wheels made and yield sit on one sheet.
Aging room inventory by shelf
Every room and shelf, the batch on it, how many wheels are left, and when each batch is ready.
The 60-day raw milk hold, enforced
Each batch gets an earliest release date from its make date and recipe. A raw-milk batch can't be marked released before its 60 days are up.
Flip and rub schedule
Batches due for flipping, rubbing, brushing or washing show up on the care schedule. The cave hand logs each one in a tap, with who and when.
Milk lot traceback
Pick a milk lot and see every make sheet and wheel batch that used it, for a recall or an inspector's question.
Yield by recipe
Pounds of cheese per gallon or pound of milk, totaled by recipe each month, so you can see which makes pay.
Raw milk cheese
Raw milk cheese aged 60 days, on the record
Raw-milk cheese has to be held at 35 °F or warmer for at least 60 days before it is sold. Make Log works out each batch's earliest release date from the make date and the recipe, and won't let anyone mark it released early.
- 60 days
- minimum hold for raw milk
- 35 °F
- or warmer, logged by room
- 1 tap
- to see what can ship
A make day
One vat, followed until inspection day
6:40
Milk lot logged
This morning's goat milk, 120 gal, raw, 38 °F at receipt. Attach the test slip photo.
7:05
Make sheet started
Pick the recipe and the milk lot. Cultures and rennet fill in from the recipe; change them if today's differ.
7:10 to 11:30
Steps logged at the vat
Warm, culture, rennet, cut, cook, drain, press. Each step's time, temperature and pH, typed with wet hands on a phone.
Next morning
Wheels on the shelf
Place 24 wheels on shelf B2. The app sets the earliest release date and the first flip.
Every few days
Care from the cave
The cave hand flips and rubs, taps Flip, and the next due date moves forward.
Inspection day
Records in seconds
Filter by date, print the make sheets and care log, or hand the inspector a read-only login.
Plans
One cheesemaker or a whole make room
Every plan starts with a 14-day trial. Pay monthly, or yearly and get two months free.
Farmstead
$12 / month or $120 a year
- Logins
- Just you
- Roles
- Owner
- Aging rooms
- 1
- Active recipes
- 5
- Make sheets a month
- 30
- Inspector read-only login
- No
Make Room
$39 / month or $390 a year
- Logins
- Up to 5
- Roles
- Owner, Cheesemaker, Cave Hand
- Aging rooms
- 3
- Active recipes
- 20
- Make sheets a month
- 150
- Inspector read-only login
- No
Creamery
$69 / month or $690 a year
- Logins
- Up to 15
- Roles
- Owner, Cheesemaker, Cave Hand, Inspector
- Aging rooms
- Unlimited
- Active recipes
- Unlimited
- Make sheets a month
- Unlimited
- Inspector read-only login
- Yes
Owner
Sets up recipes and aging rooms, sees everything, invites the team and the inspector.
Cheesemaker
Logs milk lots, runs make sheets step by step, places finished wheels on a shelf.
Cave hand
Sees the shelf map and the care schedule, logs flips, rubs and room readings from a phone.
Inspector
A read-only guest login for a state dairy inspector or a buyer's food safety auditor.
Questions
What cheesemakers ask first
- What goes on a cheese make sheet?
- Make Log's make sheet holds the batch code, make date, recipe, milk lots and volume, whether the milk was raw, the cultures and culture lot, rennet and amount, then every step with its time, temperature, pH and titratable acidity, and finally wheels made, yield and notes. That covers what most state dairy programs and the American Cheese Society's best practices ask a small plant to keep.
- Can it prove raw milk cheese was aged 60 days?
- Yes. Federal cheese standards (for example 21 CFR 133.113 for cheddar) require raw-milk cheese to be held at 35 °F or warmer for at least 60 days. Each batch gets an earliest release date from its make date and its recipe's minimum age, never less than your raw-milk minimum, and the app refuses to mark it released before then. Room temperature readings sit alongside.
- Does it replace my cheese making log book?
- That's the idea. The make sheet, the milk lot log, the aging-room shelf map, the care log and the room temperature log all live in one place and print as one record.
- Can the state dairy inspector see my records?
- You can filter any record set by date and print it or download a CSV. On the Creamery plan you can also invite the inspector, or a wholesale buyer's auditor, as an Inspector: a read-only login that sees make sheets, milk lots, aging and care records and changes nothing.
- How does milk lot traceback work?
- Open a milk lot and you see every make sheet that used it and every wheel batch from those makes, with where each batch sits and how many wheels are left.
- What happens after the 14-day trial?
- Your trial runs on the Farmstead plan's limits. After 14 days you choose a plan to keep logging; until then nothing is charged, and every record you made stays readable and exportable either way.
Put this week's make on screen
Add one recipe, one milk lot and one aging room, and your next vat is a digital make sheet. It takes about fifteen minutes.
Start your 14-day trialUpdated October 14, 2026