Part 12

CLOSING THE PACKAGE.

When a package is filled, a piece of thin muslin, cut so as to just fit into the top of the package and completely cover the butter, should be wet in cold water and carefully placed over the top, having the edges pressed down close to the sides of the tub. Then the cloth should be completely covered with a thin layer of salt; and if the salt is moistened, so as to form of it a thick paste that will become air-tight when it dries, it will do much to keep the top of the butter clean and sweet--for the more nearly air tight the package is when completed the better it is for the preservation of the butter. Then put on the cover, and seal the whole as tightly as possible.

STORING.

Remove the package to a cool, sweet place, not above the temperature of 60 degrees, and set it so that it will absorb no moisture or odors from the ground. Much butter is spoiled by keeping, because of neglecting the temperature, and setting the bottom of the package directly on the cellar bottom. If kept at a temperature above 60 degrees, butter will surely go off flavor, and wood will as surely draw moisture from the ground, if in contact with it, and become sour and musty, sooner or later affecting the flavor of the butter within the package. Nothing is to be lost, but all to be gained, by paying attention to these little things.

STYLE OF PACKAGE.

Of course, where a maker has a special market for his butter, he will put it up in such style and form of package as suits his customers. He needs no other guide and would injure his business if he followed one. But, for general market purposes, the 50 lb. tub is the best form. The New York and Boston dealers like this because it is convenient for the retailer, who can readily slip the tub off from the butter for either weighing or cutting up for his customers. But aside from these considerations, the Welsh tub is a very bad form of package for keeping butter, as it is by no means air-tight nor anything approaching it. Hence, butter sent to market in these tubs must soon be sold and go into consumption, or there is material depreciation in quality and a corresponding loss in price. The old-fashioned firkin, which could be headed up and the butter covered with brine, is a much better package for keeping butter. But, where butter is consumed as fast as it is made, and fresh winter made butter supplies the demand through the cold season, the keeping of butter for any considerable length of time is not of so much consideration. We think it fortunate that this is so.

CHEESE MAKING.

So much has been written and said, and so little understood, about cheese making, that it seems almost a hopeless task, as well as a thankless one, to attempt to say anything more on the subject. Sour ignoramuses and floating charlatans have spoiled more curds than have been spoiled by any defect in the milk. Sour, whey-soaked cheese has been the rage, and it is generally supposed that acid alone makes a firm cheese, when the experience of every cheese maker is that it is very difficult, by the ordinary processes, to make a firm curd out of sour milk--which, of course, no one ought to be asked to make into cheese--unless it be pot-cheese. Acid may make a curd solid, but not until it has cut out a large share of the goodness of the curd, and the cheese resulting will be about as digestible as so much putty.

DUTY OF PATRONS.

It is the duty of every patron of a cheese factory to send good milk to it, and to send the milk in good condition. It is not only his duty, but his interest to do this. A bad mess of milk may spoil a whole vat-full. This not only entails loss on his neighbor, where the factory is run on the pro rata plan, but the patron must stand his share of the loss. Aside from the loss entailed on others and himself, he ought to be ashamed to deliver milk in a bad condition. There is no valid excuse for it. It ought to be his pride to deliver milk in as good condition as anybody does. If he cannot, he should leave the business, and go into something in which he has the ability to excel. Care and cleanliness, if the cows are healthy and have proper food, will insure good milk always.

UNREASONABLE EXPECTATION.

It is unreasonable to expect a cheese maker to turn a prime article of cheese out of poor milk. If one carries shoddy cloth to the tailor, he expects a shoddy suit in return, not a broadcloth one. So, if he carries bad milk to the factory, he must expect bad cheese. If he takes sour apples to the cider mill, he does not expect sweet-flavored cider, but sour. So, if he carries sour milk to the cheese factory, he must expect sour cheese. These defects, when they exist in a small degree, may be overcome, or nearly so, and a passable cheese made. But, is the cheese made from imperfect milk really a fit article of food? Who would work rotten eggs into custard, or sour meal into bread? Yet this is just as consistent as working sour or tainted milk into cheese, and the product is just as wholesome. That which makes stinking eggs makes stinking milk--decayed albumen--which is just as wholesome in the one as in the other.

GUARANTEES.

The cheese maker who guarantees his cheese is very foolish if he does not insist on a guarantee of good milk, nor should he be compelled to rely on his judgment formed in the haste of receiving the milk. A tricky man may juggle a bad mess of milk on to the best expert. How can the cheese maker tell whether the milk is from a gargetty udder, or the first milk after calving--both of which may develop in a very offensive way when the milk is heated up? So the milk may be so nearly tainted or so nearly sour that it will not stand the process of heating up and cooking. The law ought to be very severe on the man who delivers bad milk at a factory, or sells it to anyone. The factoryman who pays the price of good milk for sour or tainted milk is certainly very short-sighted, and cannot long maintain the respect of the man who sells it to him, nor sustain himself pecuniarily. The man who pays cash for milk has the right, above all others, to demand that the milk shall be sweet and wholesome. This is one point that should be insisted upon--the delivery of good milk in good condition.

HEATING.

After the milk is all in, or the requisite amount is in the vat, the heat may at once be started and raised to some point between 80 and 86 degrees. If we set below this, the rennet works too slow; if we set above, it is thought to work too fast--so custom has fixed upon this range of temperature for setting, and there appears to be no valid objection to it. But while the temperature of the milk is being raised, and before, it should receive frequent stirrings to keep the cream from rising, and thus becoming partially or wholly wasted. The rennet should by no means be added until the temperature stops rising--or so nearly so that by the time the rennet is stirred in and the stirring stopped, because the milk begins to coagulate, a stationary temperature will have been reached.

COLORING.

The coloring fluid should be added just before the rennet is--unless white cheese is made. There is a limited demand for white cheese for the London market. But do not make the color too high--as there is a limited demand for high-colored goods, and this mainly from the South, in spring and fall. Nor should the color be too pale, as there is really no demand for pale cheese. It should be either white or of a medium hue--a bright, golden yellow. There is a demand for uniformity of color, as buyers often want large lots, all of the same hue or shade. In selecting such a lot, they may rule out first-class cheese that is too pale or too high-colored. The universal use of the same manufacture of coloring extract guaranteed of uniform strength, might secure uniformity in coloring. But this is doubtful and difficult. A better, and we think, a feasible way, would be to have a standard color--like those accompanying paints--furnished to every cheese maker as a guide, and let him color to it as nearly as possible. In this way, a close approximate to uniformity of color might be secured. He could then use whatever coloring fluid he chose, and his eye would be his guide. Coloring does not improve the product. If it does no harm, it does no good beyond gratifying the eye and deceiving the palate through the common notion that high color and high flavor go together.

SETTING.

Theoretically, 98 degrees or blood heat would seem to be the temperature for setting, as rennet is the most active at this point. Usually, 82 degrees in warm weather, and 86 degrees in cool weather, are the points at which the rennet is added in setting. But there is no reason for a different temperature at different seasons, except that in cool weather the temperature is liable to run down a little--which should not and would not be the case, if the make room were so constructed that the temperature could be controlled and kept at summer heat.

OTHER DETAILS.

Enough rennet should be added, as a rule, to cause thickening of the milk to begin in 20 minutes, at 82 degrees. More or less rennet may be used, as it is designed to have cheese cure more or less rapidly. As a rule, the more rennet is used, the lower should be the temperature at which the milk is set and the curd worked. Agitation of the milk should be kept up for at least 15 minutes, where coagulation begins in 20 minutes, or as long as it can be and not prevent a solid coagulation. The stirring after the rennet is incorporated is merely to keep the cream from rising. The less cream gets to the surface, the less waste there will be. In a cool room, where the surface cools quickly and there is a falling of the temperature of the milk, there will be a thin cream on the surface. This will form a soft cream curd, which will adhere to the sides of the vat, to the rake, and to the hands, and be quite annoying. The amount is trifling, but the annoyance of the thing is enough of itself to make it desirable to keep the cream down; and a summer temperature of the room is useful for this purpose, aside from the comfort and the better handling of the curd, from first to last.

KEEP THE TEMPERATURE EVEN.

After the milk begins to thicken, a cloth should be thrown over the vat to keep the surface warm. A convenient way is to tack a cloth to slats a little longer than the vat is wide, putting the slats a foot or eighteen inches apart. This is easily rolled up and set aside, when not wanted, and is easily unrolled over the vat when needed. There should be no raising of the temperature after the rennet is added and the mass comes to a standstill. If there is, the portion next to the sides and in the bottom of the vat will get the most heat, and there the rennet will work the fastest and the curd will become tough before it is firm enough on the surface. Therefore, let the heat be stationary after the rennet is added and until the curd is cut fine, and keep the heat as even as possible all this time.

CUTTING.

The coagulum should be cut as soon as it will break clean across the finger when placed in it and lifted gently upward. This early cutting is essential. There is seldom, if ever, any waste from cutting a curd too soon. The clearest whey will always be obtained by cutting early. The whey exudes from the curd much more freely when it is yet young and tender--and the only object in cutting the curd at all is to get out the whey. When cutting is begun, let it be continued as expeditiously as possible until it is finished. Do not stop and let the curd stand and toughen. It cuts more easily, with less friction and less waste by loosening fine particles of curd, when it is tender and parts easily before the knife. The more it toughens, the harder it cuts, the more friction there is, the more the curd is torn and bruised, and the more the waste. If we could cut early and cut instantaneously, it would be all the better.

CUT FINE.

Cut the curd very fine. Seldom, if ever, is a curd cut too fine. As the object is to get rid of the whey, the finer it is cut, the more easily we achieve our object. It is not as far from the center of a small piece of curd for the whey to run out as it is from the center of a large piece. By cutting fine, we expose more surface for the whey to run out of, and we have smaller pieces to heat up. Curd is a bad conductor of heat. If the pieces are large, it takes a long time for the heat to slowly penetrate them when we want to increase it. The small pieces, therefore, absorb the heat more evenly, and this gives an evener action of the rennet.