112 THE BOOK OF CHEESE 



of soft rennet cheeses ripened by bacteria may be broadly 

 designated the Limburger group. 



139. Hand cheese and its allies. Among skim 

 cheeses, there is a series of forms largely German in 

 origin in which curd not far removed from cottage cheese 

 is the basis of the product. Harz cheese "is one of the 

 best-known of these forms as studied by Eckles and Rahn. 1 

 One of these forms, hand cheese, 2 is manufactured on 

 a commercial basis in farm dairies among families of 

 German descent principally in Pennsylvania, and on a 

 factory basis in a few places in New York, northern 

 Illinois and Wisconsin. On the small scale, curd is made 

 by natural souring or by use of starter, heated to expel 

 water, cooled and molded by hand into cakes two to three 

 inches in diameter and one-half to three-quarters inch in 

 thickness. The freshly formed cakes are placed upon a 

 shelf to dry. There they are turned daily until fairly firm, 

 then packed in rolls into wooden boxes and ripened in a 

 cool damp room. In this ripening there is a prompt 

 development of a heavy viscous slime, which consists of 

 Oidium and bacteria. Other molds forming loose cottony 

 mycelium are brushed off if they appear. The proper 

 consistency of this slimy covering depends on a close 

 adjustment of water-content in the cheese with tempera- 

 ture and relative humidity in the ripening room. If 

 conditions are too dry, the cheeses harden quickly or if 

 less dry they are attacked by green or blue-green molds. 

 If too wet, the slimy covering becomes too soft and watery, 

 or secondarily covered with loose shimmering masses of 



1 Eckles, C. H., and O. Rahn, Die Reifung des Harzkases, 

 Centralb. f. Bakt. etc. 2 abt. 14 (1905), pages 676-680. 



2 Monrad, J. H., Hand cheese, N. Y. Produce Rev. etc. 25 

 (1908), 16, page 644. 



