344 THE COMPLETE GRAZIER. BOOK n. 



the greatest possible care is taken to remove as thoroughly as possible 

 the whey from the curd. 



" In making early-ripening cheese we are considering, for contrast's 

 sake, the case of very early cheese, such as ripens off in a few weeks 

 (and it may be added rots if it is kept long after it is " ripe " ), the 

 milk of the evening is not cooled, and no special care is taken to 

 shield it during the night from the air. By no means is the same 

 jealous care taken in getting a clean firm curd, as is taken with late- 

 ripening cheese ; acidity is allowed to develop freely, and the separation 

 of the whey is not effected with anything like the same perfection 

 indeed much that might be removed is allowed to remain. 



" What should we, scientifically speaking, expect to follow, in each 

 case ? Milk, before it reaches the cheese tub, is already largely 

 infected lay organisms from the dust of the air, like everything else 

 that is exposed. If it is cooled down at once and kept cool, these 

 organisms are kept in check, and increase and multiply but slowly. 

 But if the milk be left with its natural heat in it, to cool down 

 spontaneously, its average temperature during the night will be far 

 higher, and such as to favour the growth and multiplication of the 

 organisms in it the rate of whose increase under such conditions 

 is enormously great. Furthermore, if it is at the same time freely 

 exposed to the dust of the air, it is all night receiving a fresh access of 

 germs. The consequence is that when the milk is " set " in the 

 morning, the curd thrown down in the one case contains but few 

 organisms, while in the other it contains probably many thousand 

 times more. Each of these organisms that is entangled in the curd 

 may be regarded as a starting-point for change or fermentation. 

 Consequently it is easy to understand that this one difference of 

 cooling or not cooling the night's milk may in itself be expected to 

 enormously influence the rapidity of the ' ripening ' process. Then, 

 again, curd freed from whey is far less fermentable than curd con- 

 taining it. It is the milk-sugar of the whey that in itself mainly 

 nourishes many milk ferments, such as the lactic ferment, and probably 

 many more. By leaving the whey longer in contact with the curd 

 and allowing it to sour, we breed a greater crop of these organisms 

 than if we run it off quickly. And if, in addition, we drain and press 

 the curd but imperfectly, we not only introduce into the cheese more 

 organisms, but we give them more pabulum to feed on. In the one 

 case we have a cheese composed as nearly as we can make it of curd 

 and fat only with but little whey ; in the other we have more whey 

 left in, and consequently more milk-sugar and soluble saline matters, 

 so that the whole mass to be ripened is not the same. We should not 

 expect, therefore, the ripening process to be the same, apart from 

 mere speed. And it is not. The fine flavour of old cheese is never 

 developed in the extremely fast-ripening cheese we are now speaking 

 of. Before the special and more delicate organisms that would give 

 this flavour have time to do their work, the ground is occupied by the, 

 so to speak, ranker and coarser organisms that by strength of numbers 

 and of congenial food at once assume the mastery. A sort of parallel 



