The Practice of Cheshire Cheese Making. 
429 
Fig. 2.— Curd Mill. 
Fig. 3. — Clteese Press. 
milk, and become injurious to successful woi'k if they get too free 
play in the process of making. Bad odours of every kind are 
freely absorbed by milk, and 
indelibly impressed on the 
produce made from it. No- 
thing is more important than 
a perfectly clean, dry, and 
well ventilated dairy. It is 
found in practice that the 
best temperature for the 
night's milk to stand at 
when the morning's milk is 
added, is from 63° to 70° F. 
The requisite degree of aci- 
dity is then produced in the 
curd, and the best flavoured 
and most valuable cheese 
results. If the milk is be- 
k)w 63° F. it will not be 
ripe enough to do this by 
the usual course of making ; 
and if it is even a little over 
70° F. it will be over-ripe, 
and too much acidity will be 
produced. 
The uses of acidity are to 
help, in conjunction with the 
rennet, to expel the whey 
from the curd, and to form 
the texture of the cheese ; 
the right quantity will give 
a rich-coloured, fibrous, vel- 
vety curd, which will develop 
into a meaty, rich, fine- 
flavoured cheese. Too much 
acidity would give a highly 
coloured, crumbly, dry curd, 
that will ripen into a dry 
hard cheese ; while too little, 
again, will give a weak- 
coloured, soft, spongy curd, 
which will ripen into a weak 
and often tainted cheese. 
Bennet is so well known 
to cheese-makers as to require no description,="and if it is 
VOL. XXV. — s. s, F F 
