BULLETIN OF THE 



No. 148 



Contribution from the Bureau of Animal Industry, A. D. Melvin, Chief. 

 March 22, 1915. 



THE USE OF BACILLUS BULGARICUS IN STARTERS 

 FOR MAKING SWISS OR EMMENTAL CHEESE. 



By C. F. Doane and) E. E. Eldredge, 

 Of the Dairy Division, Bureau of Animal Industry. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The Swiss-cheese industry was introduced and is still carried on 

 in the United States by settlers from Switzerland who were cheese- 

 makers in their native land. Not many of them remain in the 

 business in this country for any length of time, however, mainly 

 because of the long hours of labor necessary under the present system 

 of making cheese twice a day. But this system was inevitable until 

 a sufficient knowledge of fundamental principles could be obtained 

 so that the method of making the cheese could be altered without in- 

 juring the quality of the product. As an art Swiss cheesemaking is 

 very highly developed, but it is based on empirical methods. Few 

 scientific principles have been found that are a help to the cheese- 

 makers even in Switzerland, where the industry has been well estab- 

 lished for a long time. 



Although some very fine cheese of the Swiss or Emmental type 

 has been made in the United States, the quality has not averaged 

 so high as that of the foreign-made cheese. The feed, pastures* 

 climate, topography, and other conditions, so different from those in 

 Switzerland, where the present system of Swiss-cheese manufacture 

 was developed, naturally call for changes which could not be made 

 in the absence of a knowledge of the causes which underlie the proc- 

 esses of cheesemaking. Another contributory cause of low-grade 

 American-made cheese has been the inadaptability of many of the 

 cheese factories; their fitness for cheesemaking has sometimes been 

 sacrificed to cheap construction. So many difficulties have been ex- 

 perienced that cheesemakers were led to believe that it was impossible 

 to make a good Swiss cheese except in a few localities. Some be- 

 lieved, in fact, that there was no place in the United States where 



Note. — This bulletin reports experimental work showing how to control undesirable 

 fermentations and thus to provide a remedy for the most serious troubles which occur in 

 making Swiss or Emmental cheese. It is of interest chiefly to manufacturers of that type 

 of cheese. 



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