262 MODE OF MAKING DUNLOP CHEESE. 



so numerous as to yield milk sufficient to make a cheese 

 every time they are milked, the milk is stored about 

 six or eight inches deep in the coolers, and placed in 

 the milk-house until as much is collected as will form a 

 cheese of a proper size. When the cheese is to be 

 made, the cream is skimmed from the milk in the cool- 

 ers, and, without being heated, is, with the milk that 

 is drawn from the cows at the time, passed through the 

 sieve into the curd-vat. The cold milk from which 

 the cream has been taken is heated so as to raise the 

 temperature of the whole mass to near blood heat ; and 

 the whole is coagulated by the means of rennet care- 

 fully mixed with the milk. The cream is put into the 

 curd-vat, that its oily parts may not be melted, and the 

 skimmed milk is heated sufficient to raise the whole 

 to near animal heat. 



It may be said that the utmost care is always taken 

 to keep the milk, in all stages of the operation, free 

 not only from every admixture or impurity, but also 

 from being hurt by foul air arising from acidity in 

 any milky substance, putrid water, the stench of the 

 barn, dunghill, or any other substance ; and likewise to 

 prevent the milk from becoming sour, which, when it 

 happens, greatly injures the cheese. Great care is taken 

 to prevent any of the butyraceous or oily matter in the 

 cream from being melted in any stage of the process. 

 To cool the milk, and to facilitate the separation or 

 rising of the cream, a small quantity of clean cold 

 water is generally mixed with the milk in each cooler. 

 The coagulum is formed in from ten to fifteen minutes, 

 and nobody would use rennet twice that required more 

 than twenty minutes or half an hour to form a curd. 

 Whenever the milk is completely coagulated the curd 

 is broken, in order to let the serum or whey be sep- 

 arated and taken off. Some break the curd slightly at 



