BACTERIA IN CHEESE-MAKING. 269 



is subsequently made into cheese, the ripening does not take 

 place exactly as usual. The cheese ripens faster than normal 

 cheeses, being ready for market in about four weeks, whereas 

 the ordinary product requires six. The ripening is also more 

 uniform. The irregularities usual in cheese-ripening are less 

 likely to occur, and some of the abnormal types of ripening, 

 which occasionally appear, are largely prevented by the use of 

 this artificial ripener. The character of the ripening is, how- 

 ever, somewhat different from that of normal Edam cheese, and 

 the slimy milk cheeses can readily be distinguished, by the 

 dealer, from the normal varieties, by means of their flavor and 

 character. The grade of cheese is regarded as slightly inferior 

 to that of the best cheese ripened without such a starter, and 

 is not found to keep quite so long. It is not much used 

 for exportation but retained chiefly for home consumption. 

 About one third of the Holland cheeses are made by this 

 method of artificial inoculation. It is thus an instance of the 

 application of bacterial cultures to cheese-making, carried on 

 upon a large scale and with evident success. 



Beyond this no practical application of bacterial cultures 

 in cheese-making has met with very wide success. It is true 

 that certain bacteriologists have, in experimental tests, suc- 

 ceeded in producing normally ripened cheeses by the use of 

 certain bacterial cultures. Lloyd, for example, has made 

 normal Chedar cheeses (similar to the American cheeses) by 

 the use of certain species of lactic bacteria, and believes that the 

 method of manufacture may be improved and simplified by 

 their use. Johan-Olsen has made Gammelost cheese in large 

 quantities, and successfully marketed it, using for his ripening 

 organisms certain species of mold. Adametz claims to have 

 succeeded in making excellent cheeses by the use of a bac- 

 terium which he calls B. nobiiis, a species belonging to the 

 peptonizing rather than the lactic organisms. But none of 

 these have as yet passed beyond the stage of test experiments. 



