298 
PRODUCTION OF BUTTER AND CHEESE. 
haps 90°. In June, July and August, when the morning’s milk is strained immediately into 
the evening’s milk, the temperature will be nearly that required ; but usually, from ten to 
twenty quarts must be warmed over coals, and in a Water bath, sufficiently to raise the tempe¬ 
rature to the right point. The proper temperature may be determined by calculation, on the 
principle that if the milk be divided into two equal parts, and one heated, the mixture will 
give the mean of the two. Ninety-eight degrees is blood heat, or that of the human hand, 
hence when plunged in a liquid of 85° it feels cold, because colder than the system, or the or¬ 
gan immersed. If a kettle is used over the fire, it should not blaze, lest the sides of the kettle 
burn the milk, or impart a bad taste to it. After the right temperature is obtained, the next 
step is to add the rennet. The method of preparing the rennet for this purpose, in a good 
dairying district, is this: saturate two gallons of boiling water w r ith good salt; let it stand, 
cool and settle, and then pour off the clear liquid, and infuse in it two rennets, for two or three 
weeks, when it is fit for use. Of this liquid two table spoonfuls will coagulate, or bring, as 
the expression is, thirty-five pounds of curd. It should be well incorporated with the milk, by 
stirring quickly, that it may act upon the whole milk at once. It should then remain still and 
undisturbed, until the curd has acquired sufficient consistence to be cut; when a knife will 
pass through it with sensible resistance, and leaves the curd distinctly divided, and shows a 
rippling of whey along the line of the cut. It is cut into two and two and a half inch squares. 
When this is done it must stand till the whey separates from the curd and it has grown firm, 
so that the mass can be lifted without breaking. A strainer is then pressed down upon the 
curd and the wffiey is removed, a pan full of which may be warmed up to 98° or 100°, which 
may then be poured over the whole curd. The curd will harden by this course, and become 
brittle. The whey may now be dipped out or drained off, and the curd broken up by the 
hands and salted ; a tea-cup full of salt to every fifteen pounds of curd, or to be more exact, 
one pound of salt to sixty pounds of cheese after it is cured ; this is the Herkimer county rule. 
In Gloucester, England, the salt is put upon the outside of the cheese, at the rate of three and 
a half pounds to every hundred pounds of cheese. In American dairies the curd is always 
broken fine in the hands, after the greater part of the whey is dipped out, but care should be 
taken not to squeeze the curd, as the cream, or richer part, will be lost in the whey. W T hen 
broken fine it is placed upon the strainer where the whey may drain out; it is then gathered 
up in it and secured in the hoop for pressing, which should be applied moderately at first, and 
evenly as possible. The time it should remain in the press depends upon the size ; a cheese 
which weighs thirty-five pounds should remain two days, if sixty pounds, three days, if one 
hundred pounds four, or even five days. A cheese requires turning twice a day, morning and 
evening, at which time the cloth should be renewed. In removing the cloth, care should be 
taken not to break the surface of the cheese. When the cheese is pressed it still requires turn¬ 
ing upon the shelf, and rubbed over daily with melted butter, in which a small quantity of an- 
atto has been dissolved. Large cheeses require a cotton binder. The cheese room should 
have a temperature of 55° or 60° of Fah. It is scarcely necessary to add that perfect clean¬ 
liness should be observed. It should also be dark. When the curd has been scalded too much 
