34 THE STORY OF MILK 



If you have 4,000 lbs. of milk in the cheese vat to 

 ripen with 2% or 80 lbs. starter, prepare 88 lbs. of 

 mother starter. If, on the other hand, you wish to 

 make only a quart of buttermilk every day, take, say, 

 two buttermilk tablets, crush them thoroughly in a 

 spoonful of pasteurized milk and stir this into a tum- 

 blerful of the same milk; let stand till it is thickened 

 the next day and use a tablespoonful of this thickened 

 milk in a quart of fresh pasteurized milk which when 

 ripened is your buttermilk, from which you take out 

 a tablespoonful for starter in the next batch, and so on. 

 In this case there is no ''mother starter" except that 

 perhaps the first tumblerful prepared with the tablets 

 may be called so, but afterwards the starter is taken 

 right out of the finished product every day. 



The process may be modified to suit special purposes 

 and local conditions, but the following precautions 

 should be strictly observed: (1) to interrupt the ripen- 

 ing immediately by quick and intense cooling as soon 

 as it has reached the proper point in case the ripened 

 product is not used at once, and (2) to keep it ice-cold 

 until it is used. If this is done, it may be kept for two 

 or three days without deterioration if it is not conven- 

 ient to make it fresh every day which, however, should 

 be the rule. 



