234 SCIENCE AND PRACTICE OF DAIRYING. 



117. The Art of Cheese-making. The art of cheese-making is 

 much more difficult than that of butter-making. In cheese-making 

 a large number of different conditions have to be reckoned with, and 

 their different influences have to be considered and weighed in rela- 

 tion to one another, so that they may all conduce to their definite 

 and prescribed end. To do so requires a certain measure of skill 

 and experience. He who understands how to manufacture suc- 

 cessfully even one kind of fine cheese, in different places, that is, 

 under different surrounding conditions, will also assuredly succeed, 

 after a short amount of tuition or intelligent description, in the 

 manufacture of other kinds. The art of cheese-making requires two 

 different qualifications a clear understanding, on the one hand, of 

 the nature and action of all the processes which come into play in 

 the manufacture of cheese; and, on the other hand, the particular 

 object which must ever be kept in view in all these processes, and in 

 the manufacture of all kinds of cheese. 



There is no doubt that the different kinds of cheese owe their 

 particular properties or characteristics to the action of different 

 definite bacteria, or classes of bacteria. Since it is possible to prepare 

 any kind of cheese from a given quantity of milk in a given place 

 or 4 at any time, and according to its nature to obtain it from this 

 milk, it follows that all the kinds of bacteria which are necessary 

 for the manufacture of the cheese in question must be present uni- 

 versally and invariably in the milk. These bacteria must have an 

 extraordinarily wide occurrence. The art of cheese-making consists 

 in the preparation of the fresh cheese mass of each different kind 

 in such a way that those kinds of bacteria which are active in the 

 ripening of that particular cheese must be developed to a predomi- 

 nant extent. It is on this account that cheese-making employs the 

 most various means. In the first place, the separation of the milk 

 may be effected by acids or by rennet. In the preparation of rennet 

 cheeses, it is in the power of the operator, according to the methods 

 and kind of coagulation effected in the milk, to produce a curd harder 

 or softer, and, according to the state of division, to make it damper 

 or drier; to determine, by regulating the percentage of fat in the 

 liquid which is being converted into cheese, the structure of the curd ; 

 by subsequent heating to different high temperatures to lessen the 

 percentage of moisture in the curd according to requirements; to 

 weaken the energy of the development of the more susceptible kinds 

 of bacteria; by the application of high temperatures, in the process 



