Page:Hand-book on cheese making.djvu/19

 proportionate quantity of milk, you can at once consider the quick action as a fair warning from nature that you must scald your curd in haste to keep ahead of the swiftly multiplying acid germs. As previously stated, as soon as the curd mass will cleave brittlely over the finger prepare your knives. First pick up the one with horizontal blade and hold it a second in hot water. This will warm the steel so that it will not chill the curd. Cut the mass lengthwise, turning corners deftly without lifting the instrument once until you are through. Then lay this knife aside, for its work is done. Insert the perpendicular knife also in hot water and with it cut the curd first crosswise, then lengthwise, then crosswise again, being sure to lap over the course of each cut. The curd is now in small cubes that are fast discharging whey from their severed cellular system. They gravitate toward the bottom of the vat. If the curd has been cleft by the blades, gently and with great care, the rising whey has a clear, greenish cast, attesting that it is freed from most of the albuminous substances of the milk and will render a good ratio to the patrons.

If the milk was mature, or too much rennet was incorporated with perfectly sweet milk, the whey will separate from the solids very rapidly. In either case it wants an immediate application of heat after cutting. Curd from fairly good milk, with a proper infusion of rennet, should stand for a few moments after cutting before heat is turned on. Never apply heat under any circumstances until the raw curd has all disappeared beneath the whey's surface. As soon as the heat has warmed the bottom of the vat, bare your arms and with the hands gently lift the new cut mass to the surface. In this lifting give it a rolling motion, so that the cubes will all fall apart and exchange positions with one another.