Cheese; a short treatise on the manufacture of various kinds of domestic and foreign cheese, Cheddar, Dutch, Swiss, Italian, French, Limburger, Neufchatel, cream, cottage cheese, etc.

ornell Universit

heese; a short treatise on the manufact

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Students Making Cheese in the University Cheese Factory,
Madison, Wis.

A Short Treatise on the Manufacture of Various kinds of
Domestic and Foreign Cheese, Cheddar, Dutch,
Swiss, Italian, French, Limburger, Neuf-
chatel, Cream, Cottage Cheese, etc.

by

J. D. FREDERIKSEN

PRICE 25 cents

THE MOHAWK BOOK COMPANY
LITTLE FALLS, N. Y.

1918

COPYRIGHTED BY
J. D. FREDERIKSEN
1918

INTRODUCTION

The following pages are from Chapter III of a book to be pub-
lished shortly, entitled THE STORY OF MILK, a manual for the
Domestic Science student and a guide for the Housewife and all who
desire to know something about the handling and use of milk and
its products.

The Story of Milk covers the following subjects:
I. The Production, Composition and Characteristics of Milk,

Testing Milk, Milk Ferments, Pasteurization, etc.

IJ. Milk Supply and Creamery Products, Cream, Butter, Butter-
milk, Ice Cream, etc.

III. Cheese and other Milk Products, Milk Sugar, Milk
Powder, Condensed Milk, etc.

IV. Milk as a Food, Food Value, Milk for Infants and Growing

Children, Milk Cookery including numerous recipes, etc.

The present chapter is issued in advance to meet an urgent
demand for a brief outline of the art of cheese making.

For more complete directions in cheese making students are
referred to “A B C in Cheese Making” by J. H. Monrap, Urner-
Barry Co., No. 173 Chambers St., New York, and other technical

works.

Readers interested in “THE STORY OF MILK” may order
the book through book stores or from the publishers,

THE MOHAWK BOOK COMPANY,
Little Falls, N. Y.

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CHEESE

Cheese of a thousand different kinds is made, varying in proper-
ties and appearance from the solid, yet mellow and agreeable
Cheddar Cheese to the semi-soft, malodorous Limburger, the delic-
ious, soft Neufchatel and Cream Cheese, or the sweet Myseost of
Norway. In India cheese was made centuries ago; today it is pro-
duced the world over, in the caves of the Swiss Alps and in the most
modern and scientific American cheese factories and laboratories.
Of these myriad types we can here describe only a few.

Cheese may be classified into that made with rennet and that
made without. Of cheese made with rennet some is what is called
hard, some soft.

The English and American Cheddar—the common American
cheese—the Dutch Gouda and Edam, the Swiss Gruyere, and the
Italian Parmesan are all hard cheese made with rennet. As examples
of the soft varieties’may be mentioned the French Camembert and
Brie, Cream and Neufchatel Cheese. In a class by themselves are
such cheeses as the French Roquefort, the English Stilton, and the
Italian Gorgonzola, their peculiar flavors bene derived from molds
implanted in the curd.

When cheese is made without rennet, the milk is allowed to
curdle by natural acidity or it is in some other way made acid.
Among the varieties made by this method the common Cottage
Cheese is the best known.

For many years imitations of foreign varieties such as Swiss and
Limburger have been made in Northern New York and Wisconsin.
As a result of the war and the cutting off of foreign cheese imports,
the State of Wisconsin has built up a large business in these fancy
varieties. New types have lately been added, as the Romano,

6 The Story of Cheese

Riggiano, and Myzethra, which are of Italian and Greek origin.
Some of these are made of whole milk, some of partly skimmed
milk, and others of the albumin of the whey.

Let us briefly review the characteristic features in the making of
the older types.

CHEDDAR CHEESE

For a hundred years or more this famous
cheese has been made and marketed at the vil-
lage of Cheddar near Bristol, England.

In the middle of the nineteenth century a
farmer in that neighborhood, Joseph Harding
of Marksbury Vale, systematized the manufac-
ture and it was his method that became the
model for cheese-making in America. In this
country it was first made in Herkimer County,
N. Y., where Harry Burrell not only made
cheese for the home market, but also exported

to England, and his son, David H. Burrell, at —_jogepH HARDING
Little Falls later developed the machinery who systematized the
which beczme the standard for the American making of Cheddar

and Canadian cheese factories. hese in Bugiang
The factory system by which cheese was
made from milk brought together from several
farms, originated near Rome, N. Y.. and
soon cheesemaking became
an important industry
throughout Central and
Northern New York
whence it spread into
Pennsylvania, Ohio and
the West, as well as to
DAVID H. BURRELL Canada. Today Wisconsin
Who introduced labor-sav- makes more cheese than
a Se el all the other states to-
BOMIDUES gether and Canada large-

ly supplies England with Cheddar Cheese of ;
s Father of the American

excellent quality. Factory System

JESSE WILLIAMS

American Cheddar, Factory System 7

AMERICAN CHEDDAR CHEESE

The Factory System

The milk is delivered in the morning by the farmers at the fac-
tory and is weighed and strained through cheese-cloth into the
cheese vat. When it is all in the vat it is warmed to a temperature
of 86° F. by letting steam into the water surrounding the bottom
and sides of the jacketed vat.

Ripening. The milk should be slightly acid, not noticeably sour,
yet sufficiently ripened for the proper fermentation to take place in
the process that follows. The best cheese makers
regulate the ripening by adding a starter to the
sweet milk and allowing the lactic acid bacteria to
multiply in the milk until a “Rennet Test” or
“Acid Test’* shows that the desired degree of acid-
ity has been reached. The starter may be sour
whey or preferably prepared from sweet skim
milk or whole milk with a commercial lactic acid
culture as described in Chapter I under Ferments
A Measuring Glass and and Buttermilk. From 1 to 2 per cent. starter is
are indispensible. usually sufficient. An acidity of .18 to .20% or
214 degrees on the Rennet Test is usually desired before the rennet

is added.

*THE MARSCHALL RENNET TEST consists of a graduated cup («) with
a fine hole for an outlet in the bottom. One cubic centimeter of a standard
rennet extract is diluted with water in the glass bottle (c). The cup is filled
with milk and placed on the corner
of the cheese vat, the milk being
allowed to run through the fine hole
in the bottom of the cup. The mo-
ment the surface of the milk reaches
the upper mark of the graduation in
the cup the diluted rennet extract
is added and quickly stirred into
the milk with the spattle (d).

When the milk begins to curdle it
stops running out. The sweeter the
milk is the more will run out before
coagulation stops it and the mark
on the scale at which it stops indi-
cates the degree of acidity or ripen-
ing. The point is to have the milk
alike every day and if, for instance,
the cheese maker has found that his
cheese is best if he Adds the cea
to the milk in the vat when the tes

The Marschall Rennet Test shows 23, he wants to ripen the milk

to that degree every day. So, if the

test shows 3 or 4, it indicates that the milk is not sufficiently ripened and it
should be allowed to stand warm for a longer time before it is set with rennet.

THE ACIDOMETER for making an Acid Test is described in Chapter I.

8 The Story of Cheese

Adding Color and Rennet.* If the cheese is to be colored, from
1 to 2 ounces of liquid cheese color (Annatto dissolved in an alkali)
per 1000 Ibs. of milk is now added and thor-
oughly mixed into the milk which is then set
with rennet. Three ounces of a standard ren-
net extract to 1000 Ibs. of milk is usually
sufficient. Enough should be used so that the
milk will show beginning coagulation in 10
to 15 minutes and be ready to cut in 30 to 40
minutes.

The extract should be diluted with ten
times as much water and is then poured into
CHRISTIAN D. A. HANSEN the milk under vigorous stirring so as to be
Inventor of Commercial. thoroughly distributed and incorporated in

nena the whole mass.

Owing to the scarcity of the raw material for rennet extract
during the war, pepsin extracted from hogs’ stomachs has been
substituted in many factories and is used either in dry form or as
a liquid extract instead of rennet extract.

*RENNET (see under Ferments in Chapter I) is prepared from the thire
division of the stomach of the suckling or milk-fed calf. Fifty years ago cheese
makers used to make their own rennet by soaking salted calves’ stomachs in
sour whey, and our grandmothers used a piece of a dry, salted stomach to make
Junket or “Curds and Whey.” About 1868, Christian Hansen, of Copenhagen,
Denmark, began the prep-
aration of Commercial
Rennet Extract which soon
supplanted the home-made
rennet in all countries
wherever cheese was made.
Nowadays rennet in liquid
or powder or tablet form
for cheese-making, and
Junket Tablets for milk
puddings, are prepared
pure and of known strength
in laboratories and handled
by druggists and dealers
in dairy supplies.

The fresh stomachs are
saved by the farmers or
butchers and are either
blown up and dried in the
air protected from sunlight
and rain, or split length-
wise and spread out flat
and salted on both sides.

In the lahoratory the
ferment is extracted by
chemicals and a pure, clear
liquid extract is prepared.
of uniform streneth and
good keeping quality. Or
the extract is condensed
into a powder een again Blowing up the Rennets
is compressed into tablets
of great streneth. to dry them

American Cheddar, Factory System 9

With pepsin as the coagulant it is necessary to ripen the milk
somewhat further than if rennet is used, in fact to the danger-point
where a little more acidity is apt to do harm and produce a dry and
crumbly cheese and loss of butter-fat in the whey. Most cheese
makers therefore prefer rennet when they can get it.

The rennet having been added, the
milk is left undisturbed until a firm
curd has been formed. When the curd
breaks or splits sharply before the
finger pushed slowly through it, it is
ready to be “cut.”

Cutting. Two sets of curd knives
are used, each consisting of a metal
frame in which tinned steel blades are
hung, in one vertically and in the other
horizontally. The vertical knife is
first carried slowly through the curd
lengthwise and crosswise; the horizon-
tal set of blades is then moved care-
fully through the length of the vat.
When the cutting is over, the entire
mass should be in cubes about half an
Curd Knives inch square.

The whey that begins to separate out should be clear and yellow.
Milky whey is a sign that the butterfat is escaping in it; the curd
has been broken up too violently. In curdling, the casein encases
the butter-fat and the object of the breaking up of the curd in the
vat is to expel the whey but retain the fat in the cheese.

“Cooking” the Curd. Gentle heat is now applied to raise the
temperature gradually to 98° or 100° in the course of about 30
minutes. Meanwhile the small pieces of curd are kept floating in
the whey by gentle stirring with a rake and the hands, and are not
allowed to pack at the bottom of the vat. The heating is easily

The ferment acts best when the milk is lukewarm, but it will do the work
at temperatures ranging from 50°, or even lower, to 120° F. Strongly pas-
teurized or sterilized milk will not curdle with rennet, but milk pasteurized at
a low temperature is not changed enough to prevent it from making a firm curd.
More rennet does not make a firmer curd but causes the milk to curdle quicker ;
less rennet makes the process slower. Diluted milk will not curdle firmly, and
the failure of milk to make a smooth coagulum of the usual consistency and in
the usual time, the temperature being right and the regular amount of a
standard rennet being used, is a never-failing proof that something is the
matter with the milk. It has been changed from its natural condition by over-
heating in pasteurization or by watering or doctoring, or it has not been
properly ripened.

10 The Story of Cheese

regulated by opening the steam valve little by little. Through the
“cooking” the pieces of curd shrink to some extent and are hardened
so that they will gradually stand livelier stirring without losing
butter-fat. After the cooking the curd is left for an hour or so in
the whey for a slight acidity to develop and it is then shoved toward
the sides of the vat and the whey is drained off. Here again the
“Acid Test” may assist in determining when the whey should be
drawn.

Cutting the Curd

Cheddaring or Matting. After thorough draining, the curd is
packed together in the bottom of the vat or on a “sink” provided
with a false bottom covered with cheese-cloth. After fermenting
for 10 or 15 minutes it is cut into large pieces which are again
packed together for further matting. The exact condition to be
attained can be determined only by experience.

A simple test, the “Hot Iron Test,” may, however, help the
cheese maker to judge of this point. A handful of curd squeezed
together and touched to a hot steam pipe or an iron rod heated
almost red-hot in the fire under the boiler, and slowly withdrawn,

American Cheddar, Factory System ll

“Cheddaring” or “Matting” the Curd

will leave threads sticking to the iron. Depending upon the matur-
ity of the curd, the threads will break at a length of from 14 to 2
inches. Usually fermentation is considered sufficient when threads
11% inches long are formed by this test.

Salting. The matting is then interrupted by breaking up and salt-
ing the curd. This
can be done by hand
or by a curd-mill
which cuts or breaks
up the curd and per-
mits a thorough mix-
ing in of the salt.
Two or three pounds
of salt to one hundred
pounds of curd, or the
curd from 1,000 lbs.

of milk, is the usual
Curd Mill ratio.

mn

2 The Story of Cheese

Filling the Curd iuto the Hoops

Pressing. Stirring and cooling the salted curd to about 80° F.
makes it ready for packing into the hoops in which it is to be

eo SS) ad

[ORS

———~

The Gang Press

American Cheddar, Factory System 13

pressed. The hoop is usually a cylinder of heavy tin with a
“follower” of wood on which the pressure is applied. Before the
curd is put in, the hoop is lined with cheese cloth which remains on
the cheese, when it is taken out. The press mostly used in the fac-
tory is the continuous pressure “gang-press” in which a number of
cheese can be pressed at the same time.

Taking the Cheese out of the Hoops

Curing. After 18 hours’ pressure the cheese is taken out of the
press and out of the hoop, weighed and placed on a shelf or table in
the curing room. For the first week or ten days it is kept at a tem-
perature of about 70°, later the cheese is removed to a cooler room
and possibly placed in cold storage. Usually it is paraffined to
prevent too much drying and cracking of the rind.

To cure a first class Cheddar Cheese takes from three to six
months, but most of the American cheese is made to cure much
more quickly and is eaten two to four months old. Indeed, it is
generally shipped from the factory eight to ten days old and what-
ever further curing it gets is in the warehouse of the commission-
man or in the grocery store.

14 The Story of Cheese

Curing Room

Form, Size and Packing. The old style American cheese is
cyclindrical, about 14 inches in diameter, and varying in depth
to weigh between 60 and 80 pounds. Various other forms are
now often made, square and long or in fancy shapes, such as
a ball or a pineapple. Aside from such freaks, which have
never become very popular, other deviations from the large, stand-
ard, American Cheddar, are also made to a considerable extent.
People who have visited the beautiful National Dairy Shows held
in turn in Chicago, Springfield, Mass., and Columbus, O., the
National Milk and Dairy Farm Expositions of New York City, the
Ontario Provincial Fair held each year at Toronto, or the annual
State Fairs in New York, Wisconsin, Michigan and other cheese
making sections will have in mind first the prominent exhibits of the
regular Cheddar, showing a uniformity in texture, form and taste
that is really remarkable. But one will also admire the variety of
other forms. There are the “Flats” or “Twins”, packed two in a
box and weighing together the same as one “American”; the “Young
Americas” packed four in a box; the “Longhorns” of six to eight
inches in diameter; others made like a loaf of bread and creased so
that a pound or two may be cut off fairly accurately, ete. .

The Giant Cheeses, weighing five to six tons, occasionally ex-
hibited and cut up at World Fairs and on similar occasions are, like
the pineapple cheese, a curiosity rather than an industrial product.

Factory Cheese Making 15

One of the best forms, in the writer’s
opinion, is the small 5-lb. cheese,
proportioned exactly like the large
American. This makes a suitable size
for an average family, the members of
which have learned to appreciate a
good cheese. If it is made smaller, too
much is lost in the rind; if larger it
gets too old before it can be consumed
by one family.

The larger cheeses are usually
packed in neat, snug-fitting elm-wood
boxes, with thin “Scale Boards” on the
top and botton of the cheese, the smaller
Cheese Box ones in paraffined pressed pulp or
pasteboard boxes.

Cleaning the Vats and Utensils. Like every other place where
milk and its products are handled, the cheese factory must be kept
scrupulously clean. Vats and utensils should be rinsed first with
cold or lukewarm water or whey, then scrubbed with boiling hot
water and if necessary with soda, soap, or washing powder. The
surroundings should be kept neat and attractive, and the cheese
maker must see that the transportation cans are kept clean by the
farmers and the milk delivered in good condition.

Yield. The yield is around 10 per cent. of the milk. To make a
pound of fresh cheese takes from nine to eleven pounds of milk.
In curing, a part of the weight is lost by evaporation, but this loss
is reduced to a minimum by paraffining.

Composition. The American cheese contains almost al] the casein
and the butter-fat of the milk, besides such portions of the milk-
albumin, milk-sugar, and mineral matter as is held in the water
or whey which is retained in the cheese. In round figures average
American cheese contains equal parts of casein, butter-fat and
water, 30 to 35 per cent. of each.

Qualities. A good Cheddar Cheese should be mellow, yet solid,
without holes, and of an agreeable taste, neither sharp nor bitter.
Cheese can be made of skim milk, but it is hardly palatable. In
the fall of the year, when the average milk is rich in butter-fat, one
or two per cent butter-fat may be taken from the milk and the

16 The Story of Cheese

resulting partly-skimmed milk will still make a fairly good cheese,
hardly distinguishable from full Cream Cheese. Under the laws
of the State of New York it must, however, be marked “Skim Milk
Cheese.”

CHEESE MADE FROM PASTEURIZED MILK

From time to time attempts have been made to make Cheddar
Cheese from pasteurized milk: If the milk is heated to 145° only,
and held for 30 minutes at such temperature, its property to form a
firm curd with rennet is not destroyed and it will make a fine
cheese, but if it is pasteurized at a higher temperature it will not
curdle firmly until it is ripened or otherwise brought back to the
condition required for satisfactory action of the rennet ferment.
Thorough ripening with a pure culture starter will do it, or an
addition of muriatic acid will accomplish the same in a ‘shorter
time, but care must be taken not to use too much, which would make
the cheese dry and crumbly. Dr. J. L. Sammis and A. T. Bruhn
of the Wisconsin Dairy School worked out the problem and sys-
tematized a process which is described in Bulletin 165 of the U. S.
Department of Agriculture and by which it is claimed a first-class
cheese can be made regularly from thoroughly pasteurized milk.

MAKING CHEDDAR CHEESE ON THE FARM

It takes quite a little experience to make a good Cheddar Cheese
and, unless one has the time and opportunity to study it and make
it an every-day practice, it is not as a rule advisable to attempt
making Cheddar Cheese in the home from the milk of one or a few
cows.

The amateur will usually find it easier to make Neufchatel or
Cream or Cottage Cheese for home use or for the home market.

If Cheddar Cheese is to be made regularly it is best to get an
outfit consisting of a small boiler and a jacketed vat, although
cheese may be made in a plain wooden tub or any other convenient
vessel. The double bottomed vat generally used in American as
well as in Danish dairies facilitates both the heating of the milk
before setting and the “cooking” of the curd in the whey after
cutting. Either low pressure steam, or—better—water heated by
steam, is introduced’ in the space between the outer, wooden
bottom and the inner, tinned steel or copper bottom. If it is
cool the milk should be warmed to 86° F.. In the summer it

Farm Cheese Making 17

La a

wv

| __

Saaz,
6,

American Outfit for Farm Cheese Making

may be warm enough as it
comes in, fresh from the cow.
If not, heat it by steam or by
setting it in a “shot-gun” can
in another vessel of hot water,
stirring frequently, until the
thermometer shows 86°. It
may be well to add a_ little
buttermilk or sour whey from
the preceding day, or a pure
culture starter made with But-
termilk Tablets, not to exceed
1 or 2 per cent.

If it is desired to make
colored cheese add a teaspoon-
ful of liquid cheese color, or
1% cheese color tablet dissolved
in warm water, to 100 pounds
of milk, more or less accord-

ing to season and the shade of
color desired in the cheese. — Taking the Temperature of the Milk in a Shotgun Can

18 The Story of Cheese

Next add the rennet. Where cheese is made from less than 500
Ibs. of milk Rennet Tablets are handy, one tablet to 80 or 100 Ibs.
For less than 50 lbs. of milk, Junket Tablets may be used, one to
a gallon. Dissolve the tablet, or tablets, or fraction of a tablet, as
the case may be, in cold water and stir the solution well
into the milk, making sure of thorough mixing. Let stand
covered for half an hour until a firm curd is formed. Cut
or break the curd very carefully with a big knife or spoon
or home-made fork with wires across the prongs, imitating
as far as possible the operation with curd knives in the
factory.

“Cook” the curd as in factory cheese making. If steam
is not available, allow the curd to settle and dip off some
of the whey which is then heated and poured back on the
curd so as to raise the temperature of the whole mass about
2 degrees. Repeat this several times, gradually raising
the temperature to 100°, a few degrees at a time.

Curd Fork

Keep the curd gently stirred up and floating in the whey and do
not allow it to lie on the bottom of the vat long enough to pack
firmly together, stirring once in a while until by smell and taste
(if not also by acid or hot iron tests) it appears to be sufficiently
fermented for the whey to be
drawn, a condition that can
only be learned by experience.
This will be about two or three
hours from the time the rennet

Li a
is added. aE

Draw the whey and press na
more out of the curd with the
hands. Let the curd mat and
break it up alternately several | Plain Wooden Vat and Curd Mill
times; finally crumble and pulverize it and keep it stirred with the
hands, adding salt at the rate of three to four ounces to the curd
from 100 lbs. of milk and continuing the stirring until the curd is
cooled down to below 80°, when it should be
packed into the hoop and put to press. This
salting and cooling may take another hour.
The hoop may be made of wood or heavy
tin of any size desired, with a loose follower
of wood. The sides and bottom should be
Mold or “Hoop” perforated to allow the whey to escape. Or

it may be a cylinder without to
piece of board. Line the hoo

Farm Cheese Making 19

the curd.

placed under the plank at the fulcrum (
compound lever-pre

K,

S3Diagram of Lever?Press;

Pp or bottom, placed on a corrugated
p with cheese-cloth before putting in

Pressing. A home-made
lever-press, as outlined in
the diagram, may be
made of a plank or bar,
one end of which (C), is
stuck under a piece of a
board nailed on the wall
while at the other end a
weight (K) is applied
which may be moved in
and out to regulate the
pressure. The hoop is
Ki) near the wall If a

SS or a screw-press is available it is better.

Upright Factory and Dairy Cheese Press

It is important that the pressure is applied straight so as to make

the che

ese even and not one side lower than the other.

Begin with

light pressure and increase it gradually every hour until at night

20 The Story of Cheese

Danish Kettle and Cheese Vat
the full pressure is applied. After one hour in press, take the
cheese out and turn it in the hoop.

OTHER TYPES OF CHEESE MADE WITH RENNET

In the manufacture of the Dutch Gouda, the Danish Export, and
other similar types, the cooking and matting of the curd, character-

Foreign Ch

A Variety of Domestic and Foreign Cheese made at the Dairy School of the University of Wisconsin

Dutch Cheese 21

istic of the English and American Cheddar, are more or less omitted.
Otherwise the process and the result are not greatly different. They
are all “hard” or solid cheese of the same class, though there are
hundreds of varieties in different localities, each with some pecul-
iarity of its own.

Gouda and Edam Cheese. The Gouda, like the Danish Export
cheese, is made from whole or partly-skimmed milk which is set
with rennet at 90° F. and is coagulated, ready for cutting, in fifteen
to twenty minutes. The curd is broken with the
“lyre,” so-called, a frame on which piano wires
are suspended. The curd is but slightly “cooked”
| and the whey is drawn while still sweet. After

being pressed with the hands in the vat to squeeze

out the whey the curd, still quite warm, is put into

wooden molds and worked and squeezed in them

with the hands for half an hour to eliminate more

whey, when the mold is placed in a regular press

NEU for 12 to 18 hours. To salt it the cheese is placed

The Lyre

Curing Room in a Gouda Cheese Factory

22 The Story of Cheese

in a strong brine where it remains for sev-
eral days. It is then put on the shelf in the
curing room where it is turned and rubbed
daily and in four to six weeks it is mar-
keted. The cheese is about 10 inches in
diameter by 4 to 5 inches high. Gouda Cheese

The ball-shaped, red Edam Cheese is also made
in Holland by a similar method to that of the
Gouda but the milk is set at a slightly lower tem-
perature—about 86° F.—and a starter of sour
whey is generally used.

Besides being colored in the usual way with
Annatto, the outside of the Edam Cheese is painted
with “Turnsole” a harmless vegetable coloring.

Mold for
Edam Cheese
Swiss Cheese. The Swiss Gruyere or Emmenthal also belongs to
this class. By special fermentation in the curd, gases are developed
to produce the characteristic holes, which are wanted in the Swiss

In Swiss Cheese Making the Curd is lifted out of the Vat with a Strong Cloth

Swiss Cheese 23

Swiss Cheese

om
Ss ANoietermee

Swiss Cheese Press

24 The Story of Cheese

cheese but not tolerated in the American or Dutch cheese. Often
the Swiss Cheese is made as large as a wagon-wheel and is sub-
jected to long time curing, sometimes for years. It was long sup-
posed that first-class Swiss Cheese could only be made in the Alps.
But a very good imitation is now made in Northern New York and
Wisconsin.

Roquefort. The French Roquefort is inoculated with a mold
from stale bread which spreads through the cheese and produces
the peculiar flavor of this type. It is made from sheep’s milk and

Milking the Ewes at Roquefort, France

was formerly cured in cool subterranean caverns, but now in elab-
orate curing houses. In this country imitation Roquefort is made of
cow’s milk and cured in cold storage.

Parmesan Cheese is an Italian cheese made mostly in the Valley
of the River Po and named from the City of Parma. It is produced
from partly-skimmed milk and is allowed to become hard and dry,
being used grated with macaroni.

The milk is set with rennet at a comparatively high temperature,
about 95° F., and when it is firmly curdled it is broken up and
stirred rather vigorously, which makes the curd fine and dry. Color
is now added—powdered Saffron—at the rate of 0.5 gram to 100 kg.

Italian Cheese 25

Curing Room in a Roquefort Cheese Factory

milk. The curd is cooked slowly under constant stirring to a tem-
perature up towards 140° when the whey should be perceptibly acid.

The curd is then allowed to settle in the round kettle and when
fairly firm it is lifted up in a cloth, the same as in Swiss cheese
making. The mold is also much the same as the Swiss and the curd
is but slightly pressed. In the course of the day the cheese is turned
once or twice and put into fresh cloth. The next day it is put into
the curing room when it is rubbed with salt. In a few months the
cheese is cured and is then scraped and polished with linseed oil.
Sometimes it is kept in storage two or three years in a dark room at
a temperature of 63° F. The composition averages: 32% water,
21% fat, 41% nitrogenous matters and 6% ash.

Caccio Cavallo is made in Southern Italy of a form almost like
a beet root. The milk is set with rennet at about 95° F. and after
the curd has been broken up the whey is dipped off and
heated to boiling when it is poured back on the curd.
The mass is then allowed to ferment eight to four-
teen hours according to the temperature of the air. The
quality of the cheese depends largely on this fermenta-
tion. The fermented curd is cut into pieces and sub-

merged in boiling water and is then kneaded and

Caccio
Cavallo

formed into the desired share.

26 The Story of Cheese

After lying in cold water for two hours and in brine for thirty
hours it is dried and smoked until it attains a fine golden color. It
is made in various sizes, from 5 to 20 pounds, and the yield is said
to vary from 10 to 16% of the milk. Caccio Cavallo is eaten on
bread as well as with macaroni and is much relished by the Italians.

Limburger, Brick and other similar semi-soft cheese of the
proverbial strong flavor originated respectively in Belgium and
Bavaria, but are now largely made in Northern New York and
Wisconsin as well.

The milk is set with rennet at a comparatively low temperature
and the curd is cut while quite soft, care being taken, however, not
to lose butter-fat. The curd is not salted in the vat but is dipped
out into perforated wooden boxes or molds about 5 inches square
and left to drain without pressure. The cheese are placed edge-
ways like bricks on shelves and are rubbed with salt and turned
every day until cured. During the curing process moisture exudes
and a fermentation takes place which develops the well-known
“Limburger” flavor. After eight or ten weeks the cheese is packed
in paper and tinfoil and is ready for the market.

SOFT RENNET CHEESE

The soft cheese made with rennet may be classified as fresh
and cured.

Neufchatel. The fresh soft cheese of the Neufchatel or Cream
Cheese type is easily made and may be produced in any house from
a small quantity of milk. The milk is set at a comparatively low
temperature, usually 72° F., with very little rennet, just enough to
coagulate the milk in about eighteen hours. During that time a
slight acidity develops in the milk. When it is firmly curdled it is
carefully dipped on to cheese-cloth suspended on a frame, or into
cotton bags where it drains over night.

To make the cheese quickly a starter is sometimes used and more
rennet employed. The milk is heated to 80° F., 25% starter and
71% c. c. of rennet extract, or one rennet tablet per hundred pounds.
of milk, is added and the milk curdles in about 30 minutes.

After draining for a few hours the curd is gently pressed for a
similar time. When the whey is fairly well expelled, the curd is
kneaded or run through a meat cutter with a little salt, not more

Soft Cheese 27

than 21% oz. to 10 lbs. of curd. The outfit and the manipulation
is essentially the same as described under Cottage Cheese.

A superior quality is obtained by pasteurizing the milk and if
that is done a pure culture starter should always be used. If the
slow setting method is used a very small amount of starter, say 14%,
is sufficient but when jthe quick process is employed 10 or 25%
may be added.

To give it a good appear-
ance for market, the cheese
is molded in little tin molds
very much like a quarter-
pound baking powder can
with open ends. The cylin-
drical roll of cheese is
wrapped in parchment paper
and tinfoil and is imme-
diately ready for consump-
tion. In an ice box it will
keep for a week or so.
Neufchatel cheese may be
made from whole milk or
partly-skimmed milk. The yield is from 16 to 20 lbs. cut of 100
Ibs of milk.

Molding Neufchatel Cheese

Cream Cheese is usually made in the same way. A mixture of
cream and milk containing about 10% butter-fat is used, though
sometimes the cream is not added until the time of salting. The
mold is square, 214” x 114” x 2” deep. These soft kinds of cheese
are often mixed with chopped peppers, olives or nuts and make
excellent sandwiches.

Cured Soft Cheese. For Cream or Neufchatel Cheese, made for
curing, the curd is salted more than for fresh cheese, or the molded
cheese is rolled in salt. For a week or two it is placed in a curing
room on straw mats or the like where it ferments slightly before
being wrapped and packed for shipment.

French Soft Cheese. The many forms of French soft cheese as
represented by the Brie, the Camembert, etc., are subjected to special
fermentations which give to each its peculiar flavor. Attempts have

28 The Story of Cheese

been made to use pure cul-
tures of the bacteria active
in such fermentations and
so reduce the art of cheese
making to a more scientific
process. But it been
found that any desired kind
of cheese cannot be made
simply by adding a culture
of this or that bacterium to
pasteurized milk. Of vastly
greater importance for the
development of the proper
bacteria is the handling of
the milk and the curd by
the ex perienced cheese
maker. Inoculation with a
pure culture alone does not
make the special cheese
wanted.

has

Camembert Cheese Factory

CHEESE MADE WITHOUT RENNET
Cottage Cheese. Of the sour milk types the common Cottage

Cheese is the best known.

Mono-Service Jar

It is made from skim milk which in a

warm room will curdle when sour,
whether rennet and a starter are
used or not. The thick sour milk
is heated to anywhere between 100°
and 120° and dipped into bags of
cheese-cloth hung up for draining.
The next day light pressure is applied
for 12 to 24 hours, when the curd
is kneaded, slightly salted, formed
into balls and wrapped in parch-
ment paper or packed into jars. For
this purpose paraffined paper jars
are very practical.

The more the curd is heated in
the whey the drier will be the cheese.
Often it is improved by allowing the
curd to become rather dry and then
working new milk or a little cream

Cottage Cheese 29

Pouring the Curdled Milk on Cloth to Drain

into it, according to the use to which it is to be put—whether it is
for bakers’ stock or for the table.

Simple directions for making Cottage Cheese are given in
Farmers’ Bulletin 850 and A. I. 17 issued by the United States
Department of Agriculture from which we reprint the following and
copy the accompanying illustrations:

“One gallon of skim milk will make about 114 pounds of
cheese. If the milk is sweet it should be placed in a pan and
allowed to remain in a clean warm place at a temperature of about
75° F. until it clabbers. The clabbered milk should have a clean,
sour flavor. Ordinarily this will take about 30 hours, but when
it is desirable to hasten the process a small quantity of clean-flavored
sour milk may be mixed with the sweet milk.

“As soon as the milk has thickened or firmly clabbered it should
be cut into pieces 2 inches square, after which the curd should be
stirred thoroughly with a spoon. Place the pan of broken curd in
a vessel of hot water so as to raise the temperature to 100° F.
Cook at that temperature for about 30 minutes, during which time

30 The Story of Cheese

stir gently with a spoon for ] minute at 5-minute intervals.

“At the conclusion of the heating, pour the curd and whey into
a small cheese-cloth bag (a clean salt bag will do nicely) and hang
the bag in a fruit-strainer rack to drain, or the curd may be poured
into a colander or a strainer over which a piece of cheese-cloth has
been laid. After 5 or 10 minutes work the curd toward the center
with a spoon. Raising and lowering the ends of the cloth helps
to make the whey drain faster. To complete the draining tie the
end of the bag together and hang it up. Since there is some danger
that the curd will become too dry, draining should stop when the
whey ceases to flow in a steady stream.

“The curd is then emptied from the bag and worked with a
spoon or a butter paddle until it becomes fine in grain, smooth,
and of the consistency of mashed potatoes. Sour or sweet cream
may be added to increase the smoothness and palatability and
improve the flavor. Then the cheese is salted according to taste,
about one teaspooniul to a pound of curd.

“Because of the ease with which the cheese can be made it is

Lifting the Cloth back and forth to facilitate draining

Cottage Cheese 3]

desirable to make it often so that it may be eaten fresh, although
if it is kept cold it will not spoil for several days. If the cheese is
not to be eaten promptly it should be stored in an earthenware or
glass vessel rather than in one of tin or wood, and kept in a

cold place.”

Making Cottage Cheese with Rennet. In the bulletin mentioned
a method is also given for making the cheese with rennet or pepsin.
Junket Tablets make a convenient form of rennet to be used for this
purpose.

The advantages claimed for this method are:

l. A finer textured and more uniform cheese.

2. The making requires less time and attention.
3. Losses of fat in the whey are reduced.

The process is the same as described above except that a solu-
tion of Junket Tablets is added to the milk at the rate of one tablet
to 100 lbs. of milk. For less milk use a fraction of a tablet, or
dissolve one tablet in ten tablespoonfuls of water and use one
spoonful of the solution for each 10 lbs. of milk.

Apparatus Needed in Making Cottage Cheese

Oe)
N

The Story of Cheese

If a starter is used the rennet solution is added immediately
after the starter is put in; if no starter is used the milk is left for
five or six hours at 80° F. to ripen before adding the rennet. The
milk will curdle over night.

After draining for thirty minutes on cotton sheeting the ends of
the cloth are tied together and a weight is placed on top to press
the curd gently until the desired consistency is attained.

Salt may be worked in at the rate of 214 ounces to 10 lbs. of
curd. If desired, add sweet or sour cream at the rate of 14 pint to
10 Ibs. of curd or 14 pint of cream to the product from 30 lbs.
of milk.

Pressing the Curd

It will be seen that Cottage Cheese made with rennet is really
the same as Neufchatel Cheese, the only difference being in the form
and packing or wrapping of the finished cheese.

Snappy Cheese. By allowing the sour skim milk curd to ferment
under careful regulation, a variety of sharp,snappy, more or less
hard cheese can be made. Though there is no general demand for
them, some kinds are quite popular in their own restricted locali-
ties. The Danish “Appetite Cheese” is only one of the many vari-
eties which have as many names.

Club Cheese and similar varieties are made by grinding up old
dry cheese with a little butter and packing the product in jars or

w
oo

Whey Cheese

other attractive packages. American, Roquefort, or any other
well-known type may be used as the stock for these cheeses. Every-
where they are favorites in dining cars and lunch rooms.

Whey Cheese. In Switzerland the so-called Zieger Cheese is made
from sour whey, the albumin being coagulated by heat and, with
whatever butterfat there may be left in the whey, skimmed off the
top. In Norway “Myseost” (“Ost” is Norwegian for cheese) is
made by boiling down whey almost to dryness. If goat milk is
available to mix in, it improves the cheese. The main substance is
sugar of milk and the cheese has a sweet, syrupy flavor.

Milking the Goat in Norway

END.