U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
lability of the milk or the handling of the curd in making cottage 
cheese. A higher temperature, however, should be avoided if the 
best results are to be obtained, because it gives a fine curd which is 
much harder to handle during the process of manufacture. Perhaps 
the greater portion of the cottage cheese used is made from raw skim 
milk, but the benefits to be derived from proper pasteurization are so 
great as to make it highly advisable to adopt that system of manu- 
facture. Pasteurization adds but little to the cost of making and has 
the following important points in its favor : 
1. It insures a sanitary, safe food product free from all danger of disease- 
producing bacteria. 
2. It makes it possible to exercise a more perfect control of souring through 
the use of pure-culture starters, thus insuring the formation of an acid curd, 
giving the characteristic, mild, sour-milk flavor so much desired. 
Pasteurization requires little additional work, provided suitable 
equipment is available. The use of a pasteurizing vat, so elevated 
as to allow the pasteurized milk to run into the " making vat " by 
gravity, gives most satisfactory results. 
EQUIPMENT REQUIRED. 
Any equipment needed for making cottage cheese, in addition to 
that already in the creamery or milk plant, depends upon the ap- 
paratus on hand and whether the skim milk is to be pasteurized. 
When a pasteurizer and a channel-bottomed vat are available, very 
little expense is necessary. Assuming that the skim milk is to be 
pasteurized, the following-named apparatus will be needed : 
Pasteurizer. 
Channel-bottomed cheese vat. 
Drain rack. 
Drain cloths. 
Curd knives. 
Curd pail. 
Vat whey strainer. 
PASTEURIZER. • 
The holding system of pasteurization is to be preferred. It re-, 
quires a pasteurizing vat which may also be used for- cooling the 
skim milk to the ripening temperature, after which the milk is run 
into the making vat. The skim milk for more than one batch of 
cheese may be handled in one pasteurizing vat, provided all of it 
does not have to be taken care of at once. 
The flash method of pasteurization can be used with good results, 
but in order to prevent any possible effect upon the natural coagula- 
tion of the milk care must be taken to guard against the use of too 
high a temperature. 
In case the cottage cheese is to be made from unpasteurized skim 
milk, the largest item of expense, which is the pasteurizer, will be 
eliminated . 
CHEESE VAT. 
The channel-bottomed cheese vat is of the ordinary type, with a 
steam connection for the purpose of heating the curdled skim milk. 
