THE SALTING OF RENNET CHEESE. 229 



into the air. As a rule the cheese is not further salted in the store, but is 

 turned from time to time and brushed dry with a brush. Although this 

 method of salting, in which the required quantity of salt which it is neces- 

 sary to add to the cheese is added all at once, is very simple, it is only 

 customary to use it in the preparation of certain kinds of cheese, since it 

 excludes a more lasting and absolute action on the process of ripening 

 of the cheese. It is only adopted in Europe in the preparation of poor 

 hard cheeses of little value, the preparation of which is carried out in the 

 cheapest and simplest manner. Often, however, it is used in British and 

 American cheese factories even in the manufacture of fatty hard cheeses, 

 when manufactured on a very large scale. 



In steeping cheese in brine the cheese is left for from three to four days 

 time in a saturated salt solution, is turned twice daily, and the upper surface, 

 which rises above the salt solution, is quickly strewn each time with salt, 

 care being taken that some undissolved salt is lying on the floor of the 

 wooden steeping-trough. The saturated salt solution is renewed every 

 eight to fourteen days, and is prepared by dissolving two parts of common 

 salt in four parts of water. One hundred parts by weight of water at the 

 ordinary temperature dissolve thirty-six to thirty-seven parts by weight 

 of salt. In this treatment a layer is formed on the surface of the cheese 

 1 to 1-5 cm. thick, which becomes saturated with salt. This salt, if the 

 cheese be not too large, that is, not over 15 kilos, in weight, is gradually 

 distributed by osmosis throughout the whole cheese mass. According to 

 the author's experiments, fat and skim-milk cheeses weighing between 7 

 and 15 kilos, lose, on being steeped for four days in a brine solution, five 

 to six per cent of their weight. The cheeses which have been steeped are 

 not further salted in the store, but are regularly turned, and perhaps 

 washed from time to time with a dilute solution of salt. A fresh mass of 

 cheese loses less moisture when it is steeped than when it is salted in the 

 cheese-vat. Those cheeses, therefore, which have been steeped, keep both 

 softer and damper than those which have been salted in the vat. Large 

 hard cheeses, especially skim-milk cheeses, easily acquire, by means of the 

 steeping, a very hard outer crust, which becomes detached from the inside 

 softer mass as soon as the cheese has been cut for only a few hours, and 

 left lying in a dry place. Many hard cheeses, which are treated for some 

 time on the outside with dry salt, are finally left for twelve to twenty-four 

 hours in a salt solution, chiefly for the purpose of giving them a hard rind. 



In the third method of salting, the cheese is strewn with salt on its 

 surface, or the salt is rubbed in. This is done at regular definite intervals, 

 at first daily or every second day, and subsequently less frequently, and 

 finally only when necessary. Salting is begun either immediately after 

 the cheese has been removed from the mould, or after the lapse of two 



