BACTERIA IN CHEESE-MAKING. 2/1 



studied by itself, and the bacteriologists who are able to study 

 such problems successfully are few. The subject is a great 

 field for the future. It is quite certain that those interested 

 in cheese-making will see, before many years, some decided 

 changes taking place in the methods of cheese manufacture, 

 based upon the investigations now going on in connection 

 with the agency of microorganisms in producing the cheese 

 flavors that appear during the ripening. 



If it should be found feasible to make use of pure cultures 

 of bacteria in cheese-making, it would seem that the method 

 should prove of use both in insuring a proper development of 

 flavor, and in reducing the chances of abnormal ripening. 

 Whether such an application of bacteriology to cheese-making 

 will be possible cannot yet be determined. The success of the 

 use of slimy whey in Holland, and the experience of Lloyd and 

 others in producing a normal and uniform ripening by the use 

 of lactic bacteria, certainly promise considerable success in this 

 line. One difficulty has been experienced hitherto in the ap- 

 plication of pure cultures to cheese-making. To insure the 

 absence of mischievous bacteria, and to give the inoculated 

 bacteria a proper chance to act, it would seem necessary to re- 

 move from the milk most of the bacteria present. In the use 

 of cultures in butter-making this is accomplished by pasteur- 

 izing the cream. The same method has been attempted in 

 cheese-making but has met with difficulty. In most of the 

 experiments conducted, the pasteurized milk has refused to 

 ripen, even though inoculated with a great variety of bacteria 

 cultures. Such pasteurization will of course destroy, or at least 

 injure, the enzymes present, and this would clearly modify the 

 normal ripening process. Indeed it has been insisted by some 

 experimenters that it is impossible to ripen, normally, cheeses 

 made of pasteurized or sterilized milk. If this were true it 

 would make the application of bacteria cultures a difficult 

 matter. 



