Page:Foods and their adulteration; origin, manufacture, and composition of food products; description of common adulterations, food standards, and national food laws and regulations (IA foodstheiradulte02wile).pdf/243

 process. Generally Limburger cheese is made from pure milk, but occasionally skimmed or partially skimmed milk is used. The milk is set at rather a high temperature, from 92 to 100 degrees. After the coagulation has taken place the curd is broken into pieces the size of a hen's egg and allowed to settle to the bottom of the kettle as the whey separates. In England a copper kettle is usually employed for the testing vessel. After the whey has separated the curd is taken out and placed in rectangular molds with perforated bottoms, then laid on tables so that the remaining portion of the whey may drain off. The molds are turned from time to time to promote the separation of the whey and to make the cheeses keep their form. The cheeses are next placed in rows on a flat table with thin pieces of boards between them and subjected to light pressure. During this time they are salted by applying salt externally and rubbing the surface at frequent intervals for three or four days. The salt dissolves and permeates the mass. During the salting and pressing the cheeses are kept at a uniform temperature of about 60 degrees. The curing takes place in cellars, well ventilated but very moist, at a temperature of about 60 degrees. As the cheeses ripen they grow soft. The curd takes on its characteristic greasy appearance at the time of the ripening, becoming, at first, a yellow and then a reddish yellow. The softening begins on the outside and proceeds toward the center and the cheese is considered to be marketable when one-fourth of it has taken on its characteristic texture. The softening of Limburger cheese is due to a ferment which breaks down into a soft mass the casein or paracasein of which the cheese is largely composed. By using the same kind of ferments and by following the same process, imitations of Limburger cheese are made in the United States and other countries. These imitations, however, never equal the original in the character of the product nor in flavor or taste, and should not bear the name of the real article.

COMPOSITION OF LIMBURGER CHEESE.

Water,                           35.7 percent Fat,                             34.2    " Casein products,                  24.2    " Milk sugar and undetermined,      3.0    " Ash,                               2.9    "

Limburger cheese was first made in the Province of Lüttick in Belgium. It has, however, come to be considered chiefly as of German production. The chief cause of the putrefactive fermentation which takes place in Limburger cheese is the extremely moist condition in which it is kept. For this purpose the atmosphere of the ripening cellar should be almost saturated with aqueous vapor, containing at least 95 percent of its maximum degree of saturation. This moist atmosphere, together with the low temperature at which the curing takes place, keeps the cheese soft and promotes the putrifactive ferments. Under these conditions the surface soon begins to get