| CHEESE. 
cheese-cloths, and placed for half an hour in the | gout when it is old. 
It is then taken out of the vats, and put | is either flaccid in consistency, loose in texture, 
press. 
into a curd-breaking mill, so constructed as to 
tear the curd into small crumbs, to save all the 
laborious toil of squeezing and rubbing it with 
the hands, and to prevent it from losing any part 
of its butyraceous matter in the process of pul- 
verization. The minutely divided curd, accord- 
ing to very general though decidedly injurious 
Gloucestershire practice, is now scalded with hot 
whey; but, according to the best practice of the 
county, it is merely pressed compacily together 
with the hand in the filling of the vat, and is so 
far rounded up in the centre as to admit of being 
pressed down to a fair and dense level. “A 
cheese-cloth is then spread over the vat, and a 
little hot water is thrown over the cloth, as tend- 
_ ing to harden the outsides of the cheese, and pre- 
vent it from cracking. ‘The curd is now turned 
out of the vat into the cloth, and the inside of 
the vat being washed in whey, the inverted curd, 
with the cloth around it, is again returned to it; 
| the cloth is then folded over, and the vat put 
into the press, where it remains about two hours, 
after which it is taken out and dry cloths ap- 
plied, which should be repeated in the course of 
the day ; it is then replaced in the press until the 
cheese is salted, which is generally done within 
twenty-four hours after it is made. The salting 
is performed by rubbitig the entire of the cheese 
with finely powdered salt. The cheese is after 
this returned to the vat, and put under the press, 
in which more cheeses than one are placed to- 
gether, care being always taken to put the new- 
_est lowest in the press, and the oldest uppermost. 
The salting is repeated three times, the cloths 
being removed after the second in order to efface 
their marks, and twenty-four hours are allowed 
to intervene between each. Thus, the cheese is 
within five days taken from the press to the 
cheese-room ; though in damp weather, it should 
remain somewhat longer. There it is turned 
every day for a month, when it is ready for clean- 
ing, which is done by scraping with a common 
knife, the dairy-maid sitting on the floor, and 
taking the cheese in her lap, to perform the 
operation. When it has been cleared from all 
scurf, it is rubbed all over with a woollen cloth 
dipped in paint made of Indian red or Spanish 
brown, and small beer; and as soon as the state 
of the paint will permit, the edge of the cheese, 
and about an inch on each side, are rubbed hard 
with a cloth every week.” 
All the many varieties of whole-milk cheese 
are made in methods essentially identical, or very 
nearly so, with the methods we have described. 
Good sound whole-milk cheese, whatever be the 
name it wears or the district in which it is made, 
is firm in consistency, close and even in texture, 
unctuous to the touch, mild in taste and flavour 
when new, becoming richer in taste and increas- 
ingly mellow with the lapse of a little time, and 
ee a very grateful fragrance and a piquant 
Oni 
Inferior whole-milk cheese 
harsh in taste, austere in flavour, unequal in col- 
ouring, or merging into putrefaction; or it pos- 
sesses two or more, or possibly all, of these bad 
properties. Four faults have very generally been 
ascribed to Scottish whole-milk cheese, as com- 
pared with prime Dunlop, or with the best vari- 
eties of England,—first, that it is of too soapy a 
consistency when opened, the curd being dis- 
posed in layers, and not cohering into one com- 
pact mass,—secondly, that it wants a due degree 
of consolidation from chemical influence, in con- 
sequence, as is alleged, of not having been well 
and frequently rubbed with salt during the pro- 
gress and after the close of compression,—thirdly, 
that it crumbles, like a piece of short-bread or 
over-baken oaten cake, beneath the application 
of the knife,—and fourthly, that, even from the 
same farm, and in the produce of any single sea- | 
son, it is so variable in quality as often to pre- 
clude any individual cheese from being regarded 
as a tolerable specimen of a lot. But these 
blemishes, so far as they really exist either in | 
the cheeses of Scotland or in those of any district | 
of England, are capable of being prevented by 
due care in the manufacture. 
The cohesion, compactness, and consistency 
of cheese are determined chiefly by the tem- | 
perature at which the milk is kept in the | 
coolers and coagulated in the tub; and they 
may, therefore, be regulated almost at pleasure, 
When the milk is kept at a lower temper- 
ature than 50°,or is coagulated much below 
blood heat, or is allowed to cool unduly down 
after the curd is set, the cheese made from it | 
will certainly be both too soft in consistency, and | 
decidedly insipid in taste; and when the curd is 
formed at a temperature much above blood heat, 
or is much handled or heated in taking off the 
whey, the cheese will as certainly be too hard and 
cohesive. Cracks in cheese have been fancifully 
supposed by some writers to be occasioned by the | 
liming of the pastures on which the cows are 
fed ; but, in the, great majority of instances, they 
are really occasioned by too early or too great ex- 
posure to drought. The running out of whey at 
the sides, technically called a whey-spring, is pre- | 
vented in good English cheeses by laborious 
thrusting and skewering; and yet it rarely oc- 
curs in Scotch cheeses which have undergone no 
more than the ordinary routine of compression. | 
The heaving of cheeses has sometimes been fan- | 
cifully ascribed to the cows feeding on clover; | 
and though often of obscure and very doubtful | 
origin, it probably arises, in most instances, from 
electric influence upon the fresh curd, from the | 
presence of a minute portion of gluten or kindred 
impurity in the milk, or from the use of an over- 
dose of rennet. Rankness of taste may proceed 
from some putrid matter in the milk, from pu- | 
trid, ill-preserved rennet, from the contact of 
putrid air with the milk or the curd, from some 
