Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/808

772 DAIRY good, that only so much of it be used as will suffice to effect perfect coagulation, and that this take place at a proper temperature. Too much rennet makes a tough curd and a poor ill-flavoured cheese. The time the milk takes to coagulate varies with different modes of churning. The cheese dairy comprises a milk-room, working-room, salting and drying room, and cheese-room. The working- room is provided with two boilers a smaller one for heating water, and a larger one for heating whey. There are also lead tanks for containing the fresh whey, and a cistern in which, after being scalded, it is stored for the pigs. The cheese-tub is of wood or tinned iron the latter being best, as it admits of being thoroughly washed, whereas a wooden vessel, being porous, is exceedingly apt to retain minute particles of milk or whey, which, souring in the wood, become a source of mischief to the future contents. The other utensils are lever presses, cheese vats of elm, turned out of the solid and hooped with wood, pans of tinned iron or brass for heating milk by immersion in hot water, a cheese ladder, a curd-breaker, a curd mill, and a thermometer. In England the cows are milked twice a-day, at 5 A.M. and 5 P.M. The whole available hands are engaged at this work, that it may be accomplished speedily. Usually each person has seven or eight cows to his share, and occupies about ten minutes in the milking of each of them. The milk is carried to the dairy as fast as it is drawn from the cows, and is there consigned to the care of the dairy-maid, who proceeds in her treatment of it according to the variety of cheese to be produced. The kinds of cheese in best esti mation and of greatest market value are Stilton, Cheddar, Cheshire, and Gloucester. The first variety is made in Leicestershire, and contains the cream of one milking, added to the new milk of the next. The Cheddar and Cheshire cheeses are made from new milk, or rather from milk in which all its own cream is retained. Gloucester cheese is usually deprived of a small portion of its cream. Double and single Gloucester differ only in the former being twice the thickness and weight of the latter, and consequently taking longer to ripen. The Scotch variety called Dunlop and the Gouda of Holland are full-milk cheeses. Cheddar cheese is now generally made in Ayr shire and the other cheesemaking counties in Scotland. The following is an abstract of a report presented by Mr Drennan to the Ayrshire Agricultural Association in 1854, describing the method followed in Mrs Harding s dairy in Somersetshire : immediately after the morning milking, the milk is mixed with that of the preceding evening, the whole being brought to the temperature of from 80 to 82 Fahr. by heating a small quantity of the evening milk. In spring and towards winter a small quantity of arnotto is used to improve the colour of the cheese. It is put into the milk along with the rennet at 7 o clock. After the rennet is added, an hour is requisite for coagulation. At 8 o clock the curd is partially broken and allowed to subside a few minutes, in order that a small quantity of whey may be drawn off to be heated. This whey is put into a tin vessel and placed on a boiler in a separate apartment, to be heated in hot water. The curd is then most carefully and minutely broken with utensils called shovel breakers, and as much of the heated whey is mixed with it as suffices to raise it to the temperature at which the rennet was idded. Soon after 9 o clock the work is resumed. A few pailfuls of whey are drawn off and heated to a higher temperature than at 8 o clock. The curd is then broken as minutely as before ; and after this several pailfuls of heated whey are poured into the mass. During the pouring in of the whey the stirring with the breakers is actively continued, in order to mix the whole regularly, and not to allow any portion of the curd to become overheated. The temperature at this time is raised to 100, as ascertained by the thermometer, and the stirring is continued until, at length, the minutely broken pieces of curd acquire a certain degree of consistency. The rurd is then left half an hour to subside. At the expiry of the half hour it has settled at the bottom of the tub. Drawing off the whey is the next operation. The greater proportion of the whey is lifted in a large tin bowl, and poured through a hair sieve into the adjoining coolers. When the whey above the mass of curd is re moved, a spigot is turned at the bottom of the tub, and the re mainder is allowed to drain off without the application of pressure. To facilitate this part of the work the tub is made with a convex bottom, and the curd is cut from the sides of the tub and heaped up on the elevated centre, and left for an hour with no other pressure than its own weight. It is then cut across in large slices, turned over once on the centre of the tub, and left in a heap as before for half an hour. The whey drips away toward the sides of the tub, and runs off at the spigot ; and, no pressure being applied, it continues to come away comparatively pure. After undergoing this treatment the curd is ripe for the application of pressure. If, as is usual, it be warmer than 60, it is broken a little by the hand and thrown upon a lead cooler to bring it down to the desired tem perature. It is then put into vats, and subjected to moderate pressure for about an hour ; after which it is broken finely in a simple curd mill, mixed with salt, and made up into cheeses. From 2 to 2J lb of salt may be given to one cwt. of curd. The cheese is put into the lever-press at from two to three o clock of the day on which it is made ; next morning it is reversed in the vat, with a calico cloth upon it to give it a smooth surface ; on the following morning another fine cloth is put upon it ; and after another day of the press it is laid upou the shelf. Skilful management during the ripening of the cheese is now regarded as indispensable to complete success. To enable a cheesemaker to come to the front rank, he must have a good cheese-room, with means of regulating heat and ventilation. Great attention is now paid to this important matter in many of the Scotch dairies, and stil: more in the cheese factories of America. New-milk cheese, when skilfully made, consists not of the casein only, but includes nearly all the butter of the milk. A portion of the latter is, however, carried off in the whey, from which it is recovered by a simple process. The whey is heated in a boiler to 180, at which point a small quantity of sour buttermilk is stirred into it, which has the instantaneous effect of causing all the buttery matter to rise to the surface, from which it is skimmed off and put into a jar. As soon as the buttermilk is put in, the fire is withdrawn to prevent the whey from reaching the boiling point. The whey thus deprived of its cream is run into a cistern, whence it is dealt out to the pigs. The whey-cream is kept for three or four days until it thickens, and is then churned like ordinary cream. About half a pound of this whey butter is obtained weekly from each cow. Its value is about three-fourths of that of cream butter. According to the reports of 43 New York factories in 1869, from 9 14 to lO ll fib of milk is requisite to make 1 K> of cured American cheese. In the province of Parma, in Italy, the annual quantity of milk used in cheese-dairy farms was about the year 1872 estimated, in round numbers, at 1,540,700 gallons, yielding 855,400 fib of "grana" or Parmesan cheese, 253,530 Bb of butter, and 524,700 ft of " ricotta," a fresh common cheese made after the butter and cream have been for the most part removed from the milk. In the hill district 1000 litres of milk will produce 18 kilo grammes more butter, cheese, and ricotta than in the plain. In the majority of the dairy-farms work is carried on during only six or eight months in the year. The following is an estimate of the amount, description, and cost of the year s food of an average Ayrshire milch cow on a good farm in the cheese and butter producing districts, and the value of the produce : 1. Keep. 34 to 4 tons of roots during 200 days in winter, given raw or cooked, at 12 250 40 to 50 stones of meal, cake, and bran, &c. 2100 Summer s grass 500 Straw given as fodder and litter over and above value of dung 2 Expenses of attendance, feeding, and milking, as well as deterioration of value of cow, interest on its price, and various risks, estimated at 4 5

Making outlay about 16