BACTERIA LN CHEESE 243 



The difficulty in dealing with all cheese defects is that one 

 cannot be sure, until weeks after he has applied his remedy, 

 whether it is sufficient to eradicate the trouble. The defects 

 usually appear weeks after the cheese is made; if, there- 

 fore, the trouble should appear, and a dairyman should insti- 

 tute a most careful renovation and cleaning of his vats and 

 cans, it will be weeks before he can be sure that he has reached 

 and removed the difficulty. This makes the handling of the 

 cheese problem an extremely difficult one, and it emphasizes 

 strongly the lesson that only by constant watching can one 

 be successful in producing uniformly a good product. More 

 than any other dairy product is cheese dependent upon the 

 presence and growth of the proper micro-organisms. 



SOFT CHEESES 



The essential difference between a hard cheese and a soft 

 cheese is the quantity of water left in the cheese after the 

 making, the soft cheeses having a very much higher percentage 

 of moisture. To bring about this condition the method of 

 manufacture is designed to retain the whey in the curd. After 

 the milk is curdled the curd is sometimes dipped out directly 

 into forms provided with holes in their sides, through which the 

 whey drains naturally without the application of any pressure. 

 (Fig. 62.) In other cases, the curd is cut in the vat, but the 

 curd and whey together are dipped into forms for draining. 

 In all cases, the whey simply drains naturally without pres- 

 sure. As a result, there is produced a cheese which is softer 

 in texture and which contains a very much higher quantity of 

 water than is allowed to remain in the hard cheeses. 



This large amount of water produces a ripening of a totally 

 different character from that which occurs in the hard 

 cheeses. The process of ripening is different, the agents that 

 bring it about are different, and the final result is very dif- 



