THE SALTING OF RENNET CHEESE. 227 



present if the force and weight are in inverse ratio to the arms of the 

 lever. 



115. The Salting of Rennet Cheese. A few kinds of soft cheeses, 

 especially French soft cheeses, which are not allowed to ripen, 

 but are consumed in the fresh state, are salted only when eaten, 

 and not before. All other kinds of cheese are treated previously 

 with salt partly during ripening. The object of salting is to 

 render the cheese more pleasant in flavour, more easily digested, 

 and to enable it to keep better. Many other important advantages, 

 however, are obtained by salting. The salt, when in contact 

 with the fresh cheese, attracts moisture, and is converted into a 

 saturated brine, thus promoting osmotic processes in the cheese. 

 On the one hand, the dissolved salt penetrates into the interior of 

 the curd mass, and on the other hand, a liquid flows out of the curd 

 mass, which contains the constituents of whey in a state of solu- 

 tion, especially the milk-sugar, lime, and phosphoric acid. As the 

 author has shown by experiments, if the weight of the liquid which 

 flows out of the cheese mass in a certain time be larger than the 

 weight of the salt solution penetrating it, the result is that the salt- 

 ing process diminishes the percentage of water in the cheese and 

 makes the cheese drier. If the fresh cheese have from the first been 

 treated with an excess of salt, or if small quantities of salt have been 

 added to it for weeks or months at definite intervals, its percentage 

 of moisture can be either quickly or gradually diminished, and 

 in the latter case, according to desire or requirements. This is of 

 importance, since the activity with which the bacteria grow and 

 exercise their characteristic action depends upon the percentage 

 of water in the cheese, and because everything depends on the 

 condition that ripening should proceed quietly and at an equable 

 rate, and without any disturbing fermentations in the fresh cheese. 

 Since salt not merely diminishes the percentage of water in the 

 cheese, but also exercises a direct limiting influence on the action 

 of bacteria, two important advantages are offered by the salting 

 of cheese. In the preparation of very watery soft cheeses an 

 endeavour should be made, under all circumstances, to carry out the 

 salting as quickly as possible. This is effected by making the cheeses 

 of a small, comparatively thin, loaf shape, strewing them with 

 fine salt, and keeping them during the salting, and immediately 

 afterwards, in specially constructed salt-rooms or drying-rooms. 



