20 Composition of Cheese. 



which are not unfrequently committed in the manufacture of 

 cheese. I have said in the beginning of this paper 1st, that 

 cheese is sometimes spoiled even before it is separated from the 

 milk ; 2ndly, that it is yet more frequently spoiled in the act of 

 making ; and, lastly, that it is sometimes deteriorated by bad 

 keeping after it has been made. 



I. PRACTICAL MISTAKES MADE IN THE MANUFACTURE OF 

 CHEESE BEFORE THE CURD is SEPARATED. 



The inferior character, and especially the bad flavour, of 

 cheese owes its origin in many cases to a want of proper care in 

 handling the milk from which it has been made. Milk some- 

 times gets spoiled by dirty ringers before it passes into the pail. 

 If the vessels in which the milk is kept in the dairy have been 

 carelessly washed, and the milk-pails and cheese-tub have not 

 been well scrubbed, but merely been washed out, and if especially 

 the dairy-utensils have not been scalded with boiling-hot water, 

 it is vain to expect that cheese of the finest quality can be made, 

 let the milk be ever so rich in cream. The neglect of these 

 simple but important precautions soon manifests itself in a 

 dairy by a peculiar ferment which taints the whole milk, and 

 afterwards affects the flavour and consequently the quality of the 

 cheese. Cleanliness, indeed, may be said to be the first quali- 

 fication of a good dairywoman. 



The nature of every ferment is to produce in other matters 

 with which it comes into contact certain chemical changes de- 

 pending on its own character. Thus a little yeast produces 

 in fermentable liquids large quantities of alcohol and carbonic 

 acid ; acid ferments containing acetic or lactic acid have a ten- 

 dency to generate vinegar or lactic acid in other liquids. A 

 small piece of putrefying meat in contact with a large mass of 

 sound flesh soon spreads putrefaction over the whole mass ; and 

 other ferments act in a similar manner. Such ferments generally 

 produce in other matters with which they are brought into contact 

 changes similar to those which they themselves undergo. The dis- 

 agreeable smell of dirty or badly cleaned milk-pails and cheese-tubs 

 is due to a peculiar ferment, which is rapidly formed, especially in 

 warm weather, when milk is left in contact with air and with the 

 porous wood of the cheese-tub and milk-pails. In the rapid pro- 

 cess of vinegar manufacture a weak alcoholic liquid is allowed to 

 trickle through a barrel perforated all over with holes to admit 

 the air, and filled with wood-shavings. If the temperature of 

 the room in which the vinegar-casks are put up is sufficiently 

 high, the alcohol, in trickling over these shavings when in con- 

 tact with abundance of air, undergoes a complete transforma- 



