BULLETIN 131 December, 1903 



Ontario Agricultural College and Experimental Farm. 



RIPENING OF CHEESE IN COLD STORAGE. 



By Prof. H. H. Dean, B.S.A., and Prof. R. Harcourt, B.S.A. 



The following results have been obtained in continuing the experiments 

 relating to the ripening of cheese in cold storage. Bulletin No. 121, published 

 in June, 1902, gave the results of experiments conducted in 1901, which were 

 reported as preliminary. The experiments of 1902 are a continuation and ex- 

 tension of the work. 



Possibly no phase of the cheese industry has received so much attention 

 in recent years, as the ripening of cheese at low temperatures. The season of 

 1902 was phenomenally cool, and Canadian cheese never enjoyed so good a repu- 

 tation in British markets, as they did last season. This was partly due to the 

 scarcity of cheese, but the cool season, no doubt, had a great deal to do with 

 it; thus was demonstrated in a very forcible way the great value of low tem- 

 peratures in the manufacture and transportation of Canadian cheese. 



Nature of the Experiments. 



The experiments of 1902 were divided into eight series or groups as fol- 

 lows: 



1. Four cheese, marked A, B, C and E, weighing about thirty pounds each, 

 were made from one vat of milk. A was placed, directly from the press, in 

 an ice cold storage, which had an average temperature of 38.9. The lowest 

 average monthly temperature was Zl degrees in April, the highest was 40.5 

 degrees in August. B was placed in an ordinary ripening room, which had an 

 average temperature of 62 degrees, for one week, when it was moved to the 

 ice cold storage. The highest monthly average of this ripening room was 66.2 

 degrees in July and the lowest 58.2 degrees in October. C was also placed in 

 the ordinary ripening room and moved to the cold storage room at the end of 

 two weeks. E was allowed to remain in the ripening room all the time. 

 (The D cheese, which was moved to the cold storage at the end of three weeks 

 in the experiments of 1901, was dropped from the tests in 1902.) 



2. Five cheese, weighing about 30 pounds each, were made from one vat 

 of milk and marked A, B, C, D, and E. The first four were placed at once, 

 -after taking them from the press, into an ice cold storage, while the fifth (E) 

 was put in the ordinary ripening room, and remained there all the time. The 

 A cheese remained in the cold storage during all the time of the experiments. 

 B was moved to the ordinary ripening room, which had an average tempera- 

 ture of 62 degrees, at the end of one month. C was moved from the cold stor- 

 age at the end of two months, and D at the end of three months. 



The object of this experiment was to see what effect the changing of 

 cheese, from a cold storage to an ordinary cool temperature, would have on the 

 quality of the cheese. 



3. The third series related to the effect on clieese of using an extra quantity 

 of rennet (6 ounces per 1,000 pounds milk) in the milk as compared with the 

 regular quantity of three and a third ounces per 1,000 pounds milk. The A 

 cheese were placed directly in cold storage, the E in an ordinary ripening room, 



