Page:Hand-book on cheese making.djvu/47

 average amount used per 1,000 pounds of milk for the Cheddar process. There are more makers who do not salt above two and a half pounds in hot weather than there are who use three pounds. High salting retards curing, and the object now is to get a new cheese onto the market as quickly as possible. With a wet curd salt a little more than the rule by which you are running, so as to make up the loss that goes out with the whey.

quality of goods, generally known as "shipping cheese," is made by the same process that we have described in this book with the exception that it is, or should be, worked down more. "Worked down" implies that a firmer cheese is produced, one cooked more, salted a trifle higher, and soured more. These requisites lend a cheese body and prolong its keeping qualities. With all this, it must be mellow, close textured, and fine flavored. The English consumer wants such a cheese, or he wants none. "A word to the wise is sufficient."

edible skimmed cheese is an effort to supply a constituent for the product that does not exist, namely, oleaginous matter. The butter or cream in milk is what gives rich flavor and mellow body to cheese. When a part or whole of this is removed by the skimmer, the depleted fluid, if manufactured into cheese, just as that containing all of the cream would be, will make dry, tasteless stuff. Skimmed cheese must be cooked, soured, and salted less than full cream. Flat skims can often be scalded at 93° and 94° Fahrenheit. But, of course, this must be governed entirely by the rules relating to thorough cooking.