426 



Cold Curing of Cheese. 



[OCT, 



from milk or cream. The replies which have been received enable 

 the statement, shown on the page preceding, to be prepared : — 



It appears from this that there are approximately 21 mar- 

 garine factories in England, and 12 in Scotland ; in the case of 

 butter factories there were 88 in England, and 4 in Scotland. 

 The replies received from the remaining local authorities re- 

 turned neither margarine nor butter factories. In a few instances 

 no returns hav^e been received. 



In England it is usually considered that the temperature 

 of a cheese-ripening room should be about 65 deg. F. ; in the 

 United States, on the other hand, as the 

 ^of^Cheese^ result of a number of experiments carried 

 out during the past ten years, there is a 

 general tendency in the principal cheese-making districts to 

 adopt a temperature of 40 deg. F. as a maximum. The practice 

 of ripening cheese in warm rooms develops flavour, but con- 

 sumers in the United States are found at the present time to 

 prefer a very mild-flavoured cheese, so that the new method 

 meets the market demand. There seems, however, to have been 

 a modification in the public taste in this respect which may not 

 improbably be attributable to the introduction of the new system. 



Detailed accounts of the investigations which have been and 

 are being conducted on the subject of cold curing appear in 

 several recent publications of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture,* and seem to show on the whole that the loss of 

 moisture is less at low temperatures, that the commercial quality 

 of the cheese is better, and that it can be kept for a long time 

 without injury. 



The first work to determine the influence of lower tempera- 

 tures on the ripening of cheese was undertaken by the Wisconsin 

 Experiment Station in 1895. In this experiment cheese was 

 cured at three temperatures — 50 deg., 60 deg. to 65 deg., and 

 85 deg. F., and it was found that the cheese cured at 50 deg., 

 though requiring a much longer time, was equally good in quality. 



* "The Cold Curing of Cheese," Bull. 49; *'The Cold Curing of American 

 Cheese," Bull. 85; and "The Cold Storage of Cheese," Bull. 83, Bureau of 

 Animal Industry. 



