Page:Hand-book on cheese making.djvu/17

 step in the course of manufacture. If colored cheese are desired, now apply annottoine sufficient to give a rich, golden hue. Know exactly by experiment its strength as a dye, always know the quantity of milk to a pound and portion out accordingly. Work the coloring into the fluid with the same gentleness with which you have heretofore manipulated it while raising the temperature. When the milk is all of one even, yellow tinge, attesting that the annotto is represented equally in every part, it is ready for the real inceptor of cheese, rennet. The tendency of modern cheese making is toward quick coagulation of milk. The larger infusion of rennet necessary for this purpose begets cheese that can be quickly cured for a market where they are expected to be soon consumed. The old rule of coagulation in twenty minutes is now nearly obsolete, although it will always hold good for cheese of long keeping qualities. Fall made cheese that are expected to be consumed during the winter months should be strengthened for age by coagulation in from fifteen to eighteen minutes. When we are dealing with the average spring and summer make, trade demands more perishable stock and we must cater to it. If you do not know the strength of your rennet and you want the milk to thicken in eight or nine minutes, as it should do, previously test the lactic juice by putting a teaspoonful into a tumbler of milk kept warm at 85°. If the glass of fluid thickens in five minutes, you need one quart of such rennet juice for every 800 pounds of milk to effect coagulation, as stated above. If the tested quantity thickens in less or longer time, a proportionate less or greater amount is required for your purpose. Measure the rennet extract with exactness, so that there will be no miss in its proper adjustment to the milk, and then incorporate it into the vat of lacteal fluid. In infusing it into the milk structure, manipulate your dipper with the same caution that has characterized your former attitude toward the