Page:Hand-book on cheese making.djvu/21

 know-it-all young maker's knowledge. Novices at the business are sure to stir too often and too violently. This knocks off the yield and also injures the quality of the cheese. For myself, above all patent devices in the shape of wire rakes for agitating curd, I prefer a simple wooden hand hay rake. Get one made of wood throughout and saw off the handle, leaving the stub about four feet long; this will insure convenient handling. When the moment arrives in the early cooking departure to use the rake, take the utensil described and, inserting it teeth up in the whey and curd midway of the vat at one end, push it gently from you to within two inches of the farther edge, letting the back of the rake head slide on the bottom of the vat. Be sure and do not let the teeth and head of the agitator hit the side of the vat, as curd is pushed before it which does not want the substance and nutriment crushed out of it that way. As the rake approaches the side of the vat give it an easy, undulating, upward swing, ending by a draw of the rake toward you. This will cause the curd that you have been pushing from you along the bottom of the vat to boil up with the whey in the wake of the retreating rake. If the motion has been gone through with easily and carefully, you will at once see that the curd within the rake's sweep has been thoroughly agitated without bruising. After the manoeuvre described, do not change position but drawing the rake toward you, with its head scraping the bottom of the vat, produce a gentle ebullition of curd and whey in the same way as that just manifested. Step along, repeating the pushing and drawing of the rake until the farther end of the vat is reached. Then, push the curd with the rake up on one side and down on the other of the vat, changing ends, as it were, with the cooking cheese. Once over a vat in this way, if accomplished properly, thoroughly separates the curd particles and evens up the heat through the whole mass. Now, let the rake rest but have the heat