You cannot get a good rind on a poor quality of cheese; you can
always have a perfect rind on one of good quality. Thus, in one
sense, the rind indicates the quality.
“Cleanliness is next to godliness” about a factory, because, milk
being an animal fluid it is of nitrogenous composition, and the waste
that accrues from it on decomposition becomes the most fetid carrion.
Buttermilk added to sweet milk in making cheese is a diabolical
habit, the object, nowadays, being not to produce cheese from slop
but from pure, wholesome milk alone.
Airing curds thoroughly after salting is necessary to expel gaseous
odors. The improved quality of the cheese will repay every maker for
doing it.
Never cease to agitate the question of only six days’ labor in the
week for the cheese maker. Agitate it, because God has laid it down
as a commandment for all mankind, and nature inexorably exacts from
the physical forces every violation of the rule.
Keep the curing room at an even temperature of from 65° to 70°
Fahrenheit, because a less amount of heat might sour the green cheese
on the shelves and more warmth might cause them to lose butter to the
point of off flavor.
Keep the surface of cheese impervious to fly attacks and you will
never be troubled with skippers.
Never use sour press clothes on cheese, not only from sense of
neatness, but because the rank acid will check the rind.
If you are caught with a soft curd on your hands, one that has
soured so quickly that you have had no opportunity to give it a firm
cook, grind it twice and stir it more than usual. This will reduce
pulpy lumps, add stability to the curd and prevent the cheese from
spreading out of shape in the bandage.
Rennet is the life and soul of cheese, as much depending on its
efficacy as on yeast in bread. Excessive heat stifles and kills out
its virtue and leaves the cheese structure dead and indigestible.
Makers should bear this fact in mind and never allow the cooking curd
to rest long on the bottom of the vat.
The rennet jar should never be covered, as nothing can be mentioned
that is more liable to contract fetid taint than these skins.
Exclusion of air from the vessel in which they are soaking is
extremely liable to spoil them in spite of the salt the liquor
contains.
In weighing patrons’ milk at the factory, the scales should be
balanced down and up weight taken. To the uninitiated this might at
first seem an injustice, but a little experience will soon show that
it is imperatively necessary. The dealers to whom the cheese are
consigned exact stiff up weight, and if the same is not taken at the
milk delivery window, woe be to the ratio. As all patrons are served
alike in the premises, no loss or injustice accrues to any one and
the maker is in a position to deal as he is being dealt with.
Pulverize salt thoroughly before sprinkling it over the curd. Hard
lumps will not dissolve and will produce cauterized spots through the
cheese.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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