Page:Hand-book on cheese making.djvu/23

 it is progressing. Stir it up occasionally—once in fifteen minutes or so is sufficient—and after it has stood an hour and a half at 100°, if it does not squeak sharply between the teeth when chewed or immediately fall apart when squeezed dry of whey in a double-handful, you may be assured that 100° was too low a temperature at which to cook it. The object is to cook at the lowest temperature which will do the business within a reasonable time. The higher the temperature used, the quicker it will be cooked, but it will require more milk to make a pound of cheese. A good yield and a good quality must both be gotten out of the milk—these are fine points in cheese making. The curd we have spoken of has stood in the whey at 100° degrees for one hour and a half and is yet insufficiently cooked. An hour longer at the same temperature would probably cook it to the right degree, but there are objections to letting curd stand in the whey so long—it gets whey soaked and begins to disintegrate slightly, even when no acid is perceptible. So, after a ninety minute test, (or, better yet, before), raise the temperature two, four, six, or ten degrees, as your judgment warrants, and bring it to a firm consistency as quickly as possible.

We are now supposed to be working spring or fall milk that is obstinately sweet and very hard to cook. In summer or warm weather, milk is, of course, mature; this aids and hastens the cooking process while sweetness retards it. In cool weather and with good milk, having found that a minimum of 100° will not cook the curd after standing at that temperature an hour and a half, fix your standard higher and bring it within the rule prescribed. Be sure that your curd is thoroughly cooked. Thousands of boxes of weak, half raw cheese are thrown on the market every spring that are deficient in quality through a lack of heat in the vat. The most convenient and sure test of which I aream [sic] aware, to tell that the curd is "done," so to speak, is to grasp a large