SECRETARY'S REPORT. 



101 



less loss or injury ensues to the cheese. If the milk be stirred 

 while cooling, separation and rising of cream to the surface will be 

 greatly checked. 



As the morning's milk comes in, it is strained into the vat con- 

 taining the night's milk ; at the same time stirring in carefully and 

 thoroughly whatever cream may have risen in the mean time. If 

 coloring is used, it is added at this stage of the process. A little 

 fire is then made in the heater and the whole mass of milk is 

 warmed gradually to 88° or 90° at which temperature the rennet is 

 to be added. 



This brings us to our third point, to wit : — That the rennet be 

 properly prepared and sweet and that a sufficient quantity and no 

 more be added. 



As before remarked, »^ilk can be curdled in various ways, but to 

 make good cheese, rennet is indispensable. This is a preparation 

 made of the stomach of Ihe sucking calf. It is better that the calf 

 should be not less than four nor more than ten days old.* The 

 stomach is to be emptied of its contents and cleaned without wash- 

 ing or scraping ; plentifully salted and stretched on a stick in the 

 form of a bow. When it is hung up to dry it is well to fill it with 

 salt. The skins are much better when a year old, and every cheese- 

 maker should endeavor to keep at least one year's stock on hand. 



It is of great importance that the prepared rennet be perfectly 

 sweet, efficacious, and good, and that a sufficient quantity and no 

 more be used. To accomplish this, it must be prepared with care, 

 and its strength ascertained by previous trials. The practice of 

 the best cheese-makers is to take four or six skins and soak them in 

 milk warm water — a pint or a quart to each skin, with occasional 

 rubbing during two or three hours, adding all the salt which was 

 in them and enough more fuUij to saturate the liquor. Repeat this 

 process three times, so that there shall be altogether, half a gallon 

 or a gallon of liquid to each skin. Mix these infusions and strain 

 through several thicknesses of flannel ; add more salt and if you 



*Mr. A. L. Fish says that rennet from " the stomach of swine or of the ox will 

 make cheese as different in texture and flavor as their flesh is different from that of 

 the calf and from each other. A like difference is observable in the use of stomachs 

 of quite youn^ calves and those older. The calf's stomach taken at four weeks old 

 makes softer cheese than that of the ox; and at four days old softer than four weeks; 

 and the stomach of swine softer than either. A dyspeptic stomach from a calf will 

 not make good cheese, or if soured or tainted in the least before use, an imperfect 

 curd and trouble with the cheese afterwards is a sure result." 



