Part 5

Never set above 86° Fahrenheit in spring and fall and 84° in summer.

Remember that too high heat before setting separates the butter globules from the milk structure and that they are subsequently lost in the whey.

Use nothing but stone jars for keeping rennet. If a mess of rennet worth, perhaps, a dollar should get slightly tainted, throw it away rather than impregnate it through $200 worth of cheese and cause serious illness among numerous human beings.

Use only annottoine cut directly from the seed by the chemical action of potash.

The imputation that urine is used in the paste preparation should make every manufacturer shun it with loathing until the vile stigma is disproved.

Be at least five minutes in stirring the rennet into milk. Stir it with great gentleness, so that the butter globules will not be displaced.

Curd should stand not less than forty or more than sixty minutes after the application of rennet before cutting, the variation in time to be governed by season, condition of milk and desired keeping qualities. Curd is fit to cut up when it will split clean before the finger but is not so brittle as to break before the advancing knife. Cut first with the horizontal knife lengthways, then crossway, then lengthways with the perpendicular blade. If milk is very ripe, and a quick scald is necessary, cut once more crossway with the perpendicular blade. Never slash curd in cutting, as it starts milky whey and lowers your yield.

After cutting curd if milk is in normal condition, it is, perhaps, better to agitate the curd gently for a few moments before heat is applied. If milk has already taken on acid, apply heat immediately after cutting. In agitating curd use the hands for the first fifteen minutes, then manipulate it with a rake.

Stir only enough to keep it separated and prevent it from scorching on the hot bottom of the vat.

Remember that cooking curd thoroughly is, without doubt, the most important part of the whole programme of cheese making.

Do not place sole reliance on thermometer figures—let your judgment rule supreme above that. See that every day’s curd—the product of milk in all stages of maturity—does not part with the whey until it is cooked to a state of contractibility in which the cubes will separate by expansion after pressure by squeezing in the hand. No maker considers his bread free from rawness until it has received a certain amount of heat in the oven, and no cheese maker can expect to get a mellow, firm cheese unless he cooks his curd as above described. By using the smallest amount of heat possible to cook curd within a reasonable time, a finer quality of cheese is secured and a better yield.

Hold curd in the whey until it will string fine threads, one-fourth of an inch in length, on the hot iron.

Aim to have the whey well drained out of the curd before it is ground. Do not grind curd when it is too hot. If necessary, cut into small blocks or strips and scatter over the bottom of the vat, to cool to a temperature to about 85° Fahrenheit before grinding.

Cheese makers should not be too much wedded to fixed rules. For instance, do not always hold curd in the whey until it shows a quarter of an inch of acid by the iron simply because it may be a rule. Let your judgment rise supreme over all rules. Frequently, through the summer there are cool nights when the milk keeps so sweet that the next day no acid will show by the time you have the curd thoroughly cooked. At such times, as an experiment, draw off the whey sweet and let the curd develop acid in the pack. For your particular locality, quality of milk and character of feed, such a method may produce finer cheese than if soured in the whey, and it may not. You must test all of these little details to find out.

Two pounds of salt and the fractional parts of a third pound, up to sixteen ounces per 1,000 pounds of milk, covers the cheese maker’s scale for the season in this department. As a rule, two pounds in the spring, with a gradual ascendancy in quantity as the apex of hot weather approaches, and then a declination in quantity toward fall, is about the average amount used per 1,000 pounds of milk for the Cheddar process. There are more makers who do not salt above two and a half pounds in hot weather than there are who use three pounds. High salting retards curing, and the object now is to get a new cheese onto the market as quickly as possible. With a wet curd salt a little more than the rule by which you are running, so as to make up the loss that goes out with the whey.

CHEESE FOR THE BRITISH MARKET.

This quality of goods, generally known as “shipping cheese,” is made by the same process that we have described in this book with the exception that it is, or should be, worked down more. “Worked down” implies that a firmer cheese is produced, one cooked more, salted a trifle higher and soured more. These requisites lend a cheese body and prolong its keeping qualities. With all this, it must be mellow, close textured and fine flavored. The English consumer wants such a cheese, or he wants none. “A word to the wise is sufficient.”

SKIMMED CHEESE.

Making edible skimmed cheese is an effort to supply a constituent for the product that does not exist, namely, oleaginous matter. The butter or cream in milk is what gives rich flavor and mellow body to cheese. When a part or whole of this is removed by the skimmer, the depleted fluid, if manufactured into cheese, just as that containing all of the cream would be, will make dry, tasteless stuff. Skimmed cheese must be cooked, soured and salted less than full cream. Flat skims can often be scalded at 93° and 94° Fahrenheit. But, of course, this must be governed entirely by the rules relating to thorough cooking.

FLOATING CURD.

Floating curd emanates from the rankest known species of tainted milk. The curd is surfeited with offensive, poisonous gas, that holds in check the acid and will inhabit the curd until its life has died out. All the cheese maker can do is to wait patiently until its existence has ended and the curd, ceasing to be inflative, develops acid. Then grind and salt the usual amount, airing by thorough stirring for an hour or more, with doors and windows open, to expel the taint. Let it sour in the pack. If ground and salted before gas has left it, the cheese will huff up like puff balls.

BOXING CHEESE FOR MARKET.

After the cheese designed for shipment are selected, examine every one and look to it that there are no surface shortcomings; if there are, the discrepancy must be remedied. Aim to have the cheese go into the package neat and attractive in appearance. A firm, elastic rind, well oiled, and a spotless bandage cloth, if forming the cuticle of a squarely-built, well-shaped cheese, is all in the line of the appearance that is desired by dealers and retailers. In weighing the cheese, give good up weight, taking no account of anything less than a pound. Use the best quality of scale boards and boxes obtainable, and have the latter fit the cheese snugly. After a cheese is weighed, place a scale board on the top end and shove a box onto it. Flop box and cheese over and, as the latter settles into the case, mark the weight on the side of the box. If the box is too high, shave the rim down to the cheese surface and place on a scale board and then cover. It is imperative that the covers fit tightly and snugly, and that any superfluous rim on the box be shaved off. No cheese is properly prepared for transportation unless it is so tight in the box that it cannot shift and knock about. Brand the boxes in a neat, workman-like manner, having the lettering show plainly and distinctly. Then your cheese are ready for the freight car or the vessel’s hold.

Cheese are often slightly mouldy on their bandaged sides when cured in damp, warm weather. To obviate this, when boxing, rub the sides thoroughly with a dry, soft cloth and do not box until just before shipping. No cheese should be placed in boxes in hot weather until a few hours before transportation. Standing for several days in tight packages and exposed to a high temperature, will not only try the quality of cheese but will positively injure the flavor of the very best. If they could all go to their destination in refrigerator cars, this evil would be greatly ameliorated. With the facilities at hand, however, aim to place them on the market in as neat a shape as they rested on your curing room shelves.

THE HOT IRON TEST.

I do not know what cheese makers would do nowadays without the hot iron to guide them in evenly maturing curd. It is one of the most essential attributes of making. It should, of course, be most judiciously used.

In 1845, Mr. L. M. Norton, of Goshen, Conn., discovered that the acid in curd could be gauged by stringing threads from a heated iron. He kept the discovery a secret for a long time but at last divulged it.

To supply yourself with a handy instrument for testing acid, take a three-quarter inch bar of iron a foot long and set one end into a ferrule on a wooden handle. It can then be conveniently handled without burning the fingers. Heat the metal a little hotter than desired and then thrust for a moment into a bucket of water, to thoroughly clean the surface. Holding it in the left hand, take a piece of curd squeezed dry of whey and press against the iron. If it does not adhere at all, the curd is perfectly sweet, no matter how it may smell to you. If it clings slightly, you may be assured that acid is beginning to develop, so keep close watch of it. Curd ought never to string out threads more than one-fourth of an inch long before whey is drawn, and oftentimes less is desirable.