Cheshire Cheese. 
115 
smjiUer pieces by hand, or is passed once throu<(h the curd-mill * 
(Fig. 4). The salt is then scattered over it, and the " breaking" 
continued either by tlie hands, the curd mill, or both, until the 
salt is well intermixed and the curd perfectly crumbled. Each 
portion as it is broken is put into the cheese-vat, in which has 
first been placed a clean and rather finer cloth than was used for 
the previous process, and the curd is compacted as much with the 
hands as possible. To admit of the curd being properly pressed, 
it is necessary to put it into such a vat as it will overfill by at least 
two inches. It is also rounded up a little in the middle. The 
clpth is then brought over it and lucked in at the edges of the vat 
with a small wooden knife or other dull-edged instrument. In 
order to support the outside of that part of the curd which is 
above the vat, and to keep it in proper form when the press is 
applied, a tin or zinc hoop or " fillet," the edges of which are 
rounded off so as not to cut the cloth, and the ends lapping over 
and unattached, so that the same fillet will do for different sizes of 
cheese, is introduced round the inside of the top of the vat. The 
" fillet" thus placed sinks with the curd, and having small per- 
forations in it, the emission of the whey is effected through it as 
through the perforations of the vat. Since it has become the 
fashion to make Cheshire cheeses thicker than they used to be, it 
is no unusual thing: to see fillets six or eijrht inches broad. 
The vat is now again placed under the screw or lever press, 
and the skewering is also continued. The pressure is increased 
at intervals, and the skewers inserted in fresh places to accelerate 
as much as possible the discharge of the remaining whey or 
" thrustings,^' as it is now termed. 
In the course of an hour from the time of salting the curd is 
taken froin under the screw or lever press and out of the vat, for 
the purpose of being turned upside down, which is done on a 
table. In the first place, the angles of that side which was top- 
most in the vat are cut off ; a circular piece, two or three inches 
deep, is often also scooped out of the centre, and both are broken 
small with the hands and rounded up in the middle. The cloth 
being drawn over the curd, the vat is then turned down upon it, 
and re-turning the vat with the curd in it, the olher angles and 
centre part of the curd are broken in a similar manner : after 
which the tin fillet is put on, and the screwing and pressing is con- 
tinued as before for about half an hour or an hour. It will, pro- 
bably, be two or three o'clock in the afternoon before the curd (or 
* The curd-mill is of recent introduction, and it is only in a few dairies 
that it is met with ; some dairy-maids highly approving, others objecting 
to it. I think it will soon be more generally adopted, as it effects a saving 
in time, and breaks the curd more regularlv than it can be done by hand, 
I 2 
