Page:Hand-book on cheese making.djvu/20

 Two dangers now arise and you must be prepared to steer straight between them. First, as the heat comes surging up from beneath against the tin bottom of the vat it makes it very hot below and cool on top. If the raw curd settles but a moment against the hot bottom it is liable to be blistered and seared over, to the subsequent detriment of the whole mass. Of course, it needs a slow application of heat on the start and almost constant agitation, and here comes danger number two. If you do not stir your curd sufficiently in heating, the quality of your goods is at stake, and if you do not stir judiciously, or stir too often and too harshly, your milk ratio is in jeopardy. By exercising good judgment, care, and caution you can avoid the two extremes and make each danger your willing servant. If your milk on the start is sweet and pure, allow the heat to go up slowly until it touches the desired point. If, on the other hand, it is ripe, old, or sour, push the heat with all vigor and scald as quickly as possible. With milk all right, about three-fourths of an hour's time should be consumed in bringing up the heat to the scalding limit, but if otherwise get it there in fifteen minutes or half an hour, according to the exigency of the case.

But, to return to the subject of scalding a vat of curd in normal condition. On the start, using your hands as described, manipulate it with such care that the tender cubes are not bruised and yet are kept separate enough so that they will not form into a compact mass on the warm bottom. All this time the whey is percolating from the blocks and they are shrinking in size and becoming of tougher texture. As soon as the curd begins to assume a slightly elastic consistency begin operations with a rake. If you have an idea that curd wants to be stirred all of the time through the scalding period, at once disabuse your mind of it. Such a notion is antediluvian in its conception and disastrous in its results, but, strange to say, it is the predominating feature of the