190$.] Investigations into Camembert Cheese. 435 



months, and even when perfectly ripe it preserves its form, and 

 never becomes very soft. 



The soft cheeses (Camembert, Brie, Limburger, Neufchatel, 

 cream cheeses &c), although each kind is made in a special 

 manner, all agree in one point, namely, the whey is never fully 

 drained from them. The curdled milk is commonly ladled into 

 shapes and allowed to drain naturally. Soft cheeses are not 

 subjected to pressure or heat, and therefore contain a larger 

 percentage of water at the start than the hard cheeses. As a 

 consequence of their high water content and soft texture, they 

 afford favourable conditions for the growth of various micro- 

 organisms, and enzyme action also occurs more readily than in 

 hard cheeses. The details of the process of ripening and the 

 chemical and other changes involved. are but little understood, and 

 a series of investigations into these and other points connected 

 with soft-cheese making have been undertaken in America by 

 the Storrs' Experiment Station in conjunction with the United 

 States Department of Agriculture. The Camembert cheese was 

 selected first, and a preliminary bulletin has now been published 

 dealing more particularly with the scientific questions involved. 



An examination was made of a number of moulds found on 

 Camembert cheese, and it was shown by pure-culture experi- 

 ments that the Camembert mould (Penicillium candidum ?) is 

 not only capable of changing the acidity of the curd, but is able 

 also to cause such changes of the curd as will account for the 

 texture of the ripe cheese, and that this result is due to the 

 secretion of an enzyme. A cheese ripened by this mould alone 

 is white, soft, creamy, and quite palatable, but wanting in colour 

 and lacking the peculiar flavour of true Camembert cheese. 

 After repeated tests had shown the same result, another 

 organism was sought for capable of producing the desired 

 flavour. Among the fungi met with on Camembert cheese is 

 the well-known Oidium lactis, and it was found that the inocula- 

 tion of this organism upon cheese partially ripe and lacking 

 flavour would lead to the production of the flavour distinctly in 

 a very few days. From its habits of growth the development 

 of this mould upon cheese is nearly always accompanied by a 

 rapid multiplication of bacteria, and a final conclusion as to 

 whether or not Oidium lactis alone produces the flavour must 



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