298 PRODUCTION OF BUTTER AND CHEESE. 



haps 90°. In June, July and August, when the morning's milk is strained immediately into 

 the evening's milk, the temperature will be nearly that required ; but usually, from (en to 

 twenty quarts must be warmed over coals, and in a tt'ater bath, sufficiently to raise the tempe- 

 rature to the right point. The proper temperature may be determined by calculation, on the 

 principle that if the milk be divided into two equal parts, and one heated, the mixture will 

 give the mean of the two. Ninety-eight degrees is blood heat, or that of the human hand, 

 hence when plunged in a liquid of 85° it feels cold, because colder than the system, or the or- 

 gan immersed. If a kettle is used over the fire, it should not blaze, lest the sides of the kettle 

 bum the milk, or impart a bad taste to it. After the right temperature is obtained, the next 

 step is to add the rennet. The method of preparing the rennet for this purpose, in a good 

 dairying district, is this : saturate two gallons of boiling water with good salt ; let it stand, 

 cool and settle, and then pour oflF the clear liquid, and infuse in it two rennets, for two or three 

 weeks, when it is fit for use. Of this liquid two table spoonfuls will coagulate, or bring, as 

 the expression is, thirty-five pounds of curd. It should be well incorporated with the milk, by 

 stirring quickly, that it may act upon the whole milk at once. It should then remain still and 

 undisturbed, until the curd has acquired sufficient consistence to be cut ; when a knife will 

 pass through it with sensible resistance, and leaves the curd distinctly divided, and shows a 

 rippling of whey along the line of the cut. It is cut into two and two and a half inch squares. 

 When this is done it must stand till the whey separates from the curd and it has grown firm, 

 so that the mass can be lifted without breaking. A strainer is then pressed down upon the 

 curd and the whey is removed, a pan full of which may be warmed up to 98° or 100°, which 

 may then be poured over the whole curd. The curd will harden by this course, and become 

 brittle. The whey may now be dipped out or drained off, and the curd broken up by the 

 hands and salted j a tea-cup full of salt to every fifteen pounds of curd, or to be more exact, 

 one pound of salt to sixty pounds of cheese after it is cured ; this is the Herkimer county rule. 

 In Gloucester, England, the salt is put upon the outside of the cheese, at the rate of three and 

 a half pounds to every hundred pounds of cheese. In American dairies the curd is always 

 broken fine in the hands, after the greater part of the whey is dipped out, but care should be 

 taken not to squeeze the curd, as the cream, or richer part, will be lost in the whey. When 

 broken fine it is placed upon the strainer where the whey may drain out ; it is then gathered 

 up in it and secured in the hoop for pressing, which should be applied moderately at first, and 

 evenly as possible. The time it should remain in the press depends upon the size ; a cheese 

 which weighs thirty-five pounds should remain two days, if sixty pounds, three days, if one 

 hundred pounds four, or even five days. A cheese requires turning twice a day, morning and 

 evening, at which time the cloth should be renewed. In removing the cloth, care should be 

 taken not to break the surface of the cheese. When the cheese is pressed it still requires turn- 

 ing upon the shelf, and rubbed over daily with melted butter, in which a small quantity of an- 

 atto has been dissolved. Large cheeses require a cotton binder. The cheese room should 

 have a temperature of 55° or 60° of Fah. It is scarcely necessary to add that perfect clean- 

 liness should be observed. It should also be dark. When the curd has been scalded too much 



