Page:Hand-book on cheese making.djvu/41

 and sound judgment of the maker must intervene and offset the lacteal variation, by appropriate changes in the manner of working the product.

Making good cheese out of poor milk is much talked of by makers and considered quite an accomplishment. It consists in clothing the product in a glamour of deception, propagating dyspepsia, and shielding careless dairymen.

Skimmed cheese is dry and tasteless and unfit for human food, because the meat has been extracted, and the shell left. It should take a back seat on the bench of humilationhumiliation [sic] beside oleomargerineoleomargarine [sic].

When whey sparkles it is sour.

When raw curd settles quickly after being cut up, it is a signal that it is aging rapidly and developing acid. White scum on the whey indicates the presence of acid.

Butter exuding slightly from the hoops of pressing cheese tells of acid and bespeaks a fine quality of goods. Butter exuding in excessive quantity from the hoops is proof that the milk has either been violently shaken up over rough roads or has been set at a very high temperature.

You cannot get a good rind on a poor quality of cheese; you can always have a perfect rind on one of good quality. Thus, in one sense, the rind indicates the quality.

"Cleanliness is next to godliness" about a factory, because, milk being an animal fluid, it is of nitrogenous composition, and the waste that accrues from it on decomposition becomes the most fetid carrion.

Buttermilk added to sweet milk in making cheese is a diabolical habit, the object, nowadays, being not to produce cheese from slop but from pure, wholesome milk alone.

Airing curds thoroughly after salting is necessary to expel gaseous odors. The improved quality of the cheese will repay every maker for doing it.