Hand-Book on Cheese Making

Part 1

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HAND-BOOK

——ON——

CHEESE MAKING,

——BY——

GEO. E. NEWELL.

PUBLISHED BY THE MICHIGAN DAIRYMAN, GRAND RAPIDS.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT.

Thanks are due Messrs. Hunter, Walton & Co., of New York; Childs & Jones, of Utica, and D. H. Burrell & Co., of Little Falls, N. Y., for some statistical information contained in these pages.

COPYRIGHT 1889, BY E. A. STOWE & BRO.

PRESS OF FULLER & STOWE CO.

PREFACE.

This little work on cheese manufacture is inscribed to makers, dealers and consumers, in the hope that its careful perusal may be of aid to one and all. The prestige that American cheese holds in the markets of the world has been threatened from many quarters, but we who inaugurated the Cheddar system on this side of the Atlantic are not prepared to succumb to competition, however sharp, or to prejudice, however strong. American cheese will hold its own as long as it has a square quality basis to stand upon. We possess the most natural and privileged dairy regions on earth. Let us utilize to their fullest extent the great advantages within our grasp. Dairymen have of late been struck with consternation by the ascendency of Canadian cheese over the States’ product. The dairy press have been pounding away at the gruesome situation so vigorously that many cheese men have been frightened into the belief that Canada has a corner on gilt-edged quality and fancy quotations that is liable to continue indefinitely. The writer has no such apprehension, however, and sees no reason why an American cheese should not always be a peer of the best. There has been unanimous action all over the dairy portions of the Dominion to effect the slight advantage they now hold. If, in a strenuous endeavor to improve the product, our friends across the border have succeeded and at the same time have stimulated us to a like movement, then thanks be to them. Legitimate competition aids all mankind.

As the caption indicates, this treatise is from the pen of a practical maker, who analyzes cheese manufacture from a standpoint of practice and experience, and not theory. In elucidating to my readers the fundamental and collateral fabric of milk manufacture, I write from the desk of a cheese factory, with milk, utensils and product under my immediate and daily supervision. In these pages, I shall discard everything theoretic, and base the whole value of the book on its practicability. In doing so my constant thought shall be the elevation and supremacy of American cheese to the highest standard attainable. To this manual I especially invite the criticism of the cheese profession in general, trusting that it may be a convenient book of reliable reference to the experienced and a work of utility to the novice.

GEO. E. NEWELL.

LEONARDSVILLE, N. Y.

THE FACTORY BUILDING AND SITE.

The site for a cheese factory should be a well-drained, slightly elevated location, convenient to a copious and perpetual flow of water. The size of the building is, of course, to be measured by the amount of milk to be manufactured therein, but the same internal arrangement is needed alike in both small and large factories. The building should rest on a substantial stone foundation, with a free circulation of air underneath, and a complete system of troughs be appendent to carry all slops and whey beyond contaminating distance. It is unnecessary that the building be more than a story and a half high, unless the upper apartment is required for something besides curing cheese. The make-room should be ceiled, and the curing-room plastered. The make-room should be in the front of the building, with the engine-room on one side of it and the milk delivery window on the other. The curing-room should be in the back. Cut off all superfluous space about the building and have just enough room to be nicely convenient. Put an awning roof over the delivery window, wide and long enough to cover wagon and team. Set the vats broadside to the milk scales, with ends towards the outer door. The platform for the weighing-can and scales should be on a level with the top of the vats. A small office desk should be hung to the wall near the weigh can, and close at hand, so that every patron can see them, should be arranged the cream tubes, and lactometer. Tin utensils can be hung on pegs in the wall, and a stout, low shelf in one corner will support rennet and annottoine jars. Have the aisle between the vats wide enough to permit of easy passage, and at the farther ends of the vats sink a trough into the floor to carry off the whey. Have similar troughs under the presses. The floor should be full enough in the center to gravitate all slop toward the drains. It is useless to have a factory floor wet all of the time; keep it dry by a system of neatness. The curing-room should have an outside door, from which cheese can be loaded. An adjoining lean-to shed, for storing empty cheese boxes and housing fuel, is also a needed addition to the building. For a one day milk delivery factory, no ice-house is required. Build substantially and paint neatly, aiming to have a model-looking factory.

Beginning of the Cheese Factory System in America.

About the year 1853, a gentleman residing near Rome, Oneida county, N. Y., Jesse Williams by name, conceived the idea of manufacturing his neighbors’ milk in common with his own. This is the first known instance of manufacture in this country by associated dairies, although the method was previously in vogue in Switzerland. I quote from an old report: “It required a long time to create the demand which now exists in England for American cheese, and to Herkimer county, New York, belongs the credit of creating it and securing the trade. It was mainly effected by bringing a high degree of skill to bear upon the manufacture generally, thus producing not only a good article, but uniformly good, or as near uniform as is possible when made in different families. Cheese had been sent abroad in small amounts for many years, but when once by good quality and uniformity it had secured a firm foothold, the amount exported increased with astonishing rapidity. By gradual growth it had come to nine million pounds in 1859, in 1860 it amounted to twenty-three millions, in 1861 to forty millions, and the demand and supply have steadily increased ever since. It is a noteworthy fact that systematic attempts to improve the manufacture of cheese began to be made both in Somersetshire, England, and in Herkimer county, New York, about the same time; and also, that with no knowledge on the part of either of the progress made by the other, after lengthened experiments, both should have adopted substantially the same method; for it is a fact that the Cheddar and Herkimer methods so closely resemble each other that the only differences of any consequence are such as necessarily grow out of the difference of climate. Their process differs from most methods mainly in two particulars; first, in employing milk which has attained a proximate degree of acidity, although never enough to be sensible to the taste, instead of such as is quite new; and, second, in the separation of the whey from the curd by causing its contraction and precipitation, instead of depending mainly on mechanical means. The improvements thus introduced within a comparatively recent period have resulted in several important advantages: First, a material reduction of labor; second, the production of a larger amount and a better quality of cheese from a given quantity of milk; and, lastly, the cheese made by this method requires less time for the ripening process, and thus is sooner ready for the market.

Utensils Necessary to Stock a Factory.

A boiler of moderate capacity, with fittings complete; milk vats with steam pipes and connections; patent galvanized iron cheese hoops; a gang press; weigh can with large gate; milk conductor to convey the lacteal fluid from the weigh can to the cloth strainer over the vat; common sized scales that will weigh at least 600 pounds; small sized scales for weighing cheese; two curd knives, one with horizontal and the other with perpendicular blades; large wheel with crank and endless rope for hoisting milk; two stone rennet jars of a capacity of ten gallons each; two thermometers, one for the make and the other for the curing-room; jar for keeping annottoine; syphon and tin strainer for drawing whey from the vat; a self-salting curd mill—a curd mill is now indispensable to a factory, and a self-salting one is indispensable where only one man is employed; rubber mop, curd broom and floor broom; milk book for keeping accurate account of all business transacted in the establishment, including daily receipts of milk from patrons; a set of glass tubes in a case, for testing milk as to the amount of cream it contains and comparing its state of maturity; two water pails and one curd pail; a heavy curd scoop; two dippers, one of three and the other of six quarts capacity; glass graduated jar and lactometer for testing milk to locate water—be sure and purchase a lactometer gauged for trying milk at 80° Fahrenheit, many being gauged for 60° Fahrenheit, and of little use in hot weather unless you have ice handy to chill the milk designed for the test; stencils, case and brush for dating cheese and branding boxes; tin funnel for conveying whey from the vat to the outside tank; curd rake for agitating the product when cooking; a cheese tryer; a curd sink is not now strictly essential, although some makers still prefer to use one.

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