CHEDDAR CHEESE. 53 
Another lot of milk, in quantity as much as required for a 
2 per cent starter in our vat, should be selected as before and 
heated to 200° F. for fifteen minutes, and then cooled to 70° F. 
and the first culture (startoline) added. In twenty-four hours 
it will be ready to use. A little is saved each day to make new 
starter. The starter should always be handled in sterile vessels. 
If care is taken not to contaminate the starter, it can be propa- 
gated in a very pure state through a whole season. Carelessness 
in handling the starter will infect it with other germs, which 
will spoil it, in which case it will be necessary to begin over 
again. 
113. What Not to Use for a Starter. 
A starter should not be saved from the whole vat of milk, 
nor from the whey, for the starter will then be likely to contain 
all sorts of germs, good, bad and indifferent, and these will all 
be transmitted from one day’s milk to the next; in fact, a bad 
disease might be carried through the milk in this way for a 
whole season. Thick milk may be used for a starter, if one is 
hard pressed, Lut it is better not to let the starter get quite 
thick. If the starter is thick, it should be strained carefully 
through a cloth strainer, for if clots of thick starter get into the 
vat of milk, they will not be colored and may leave white specks 
in the curd. 
By adding about half water to the starter milk in the even- 
ing it will mix nicely in the vat. 
Milk should be ripened to a point where in two hours from 
the time the rennet is added to the milk, there will be one-eighth 
of an inch of acid on the curd (135). This corresponds to .2 per 
cent of acid. 
y14. Milk Must Not be Too Ripe. 
Milk should never be allowed to ripen to a point where it 
will work too fast. In such cases there will be too great a loss 
of fat in the whey, and a small yield of cheese. 
115. Adding the Color. 
Until lately cheese color has been made from the annatto 
seed grown in the West Indies. Cheese color from aniline, a 
coal-tar product, was also made some years ago, but is not now 
