Take the calf's maw, or stomach, and having taken out the curd contained
therein, wash it clean, and salt it thoroughly, inside and out, leaving
a white coat of salt over every part of it. Put it into an earthen jar,
or other vessel, and let it stand three or four days; in which time it
will have formed the salt and its own natural juice into a pickle. Take
it out of the jar, and hang it up for two or three days, to let the
pickle drain from it; resalt it; place it again in the jar; cover it
tight down with a paper, pierced with a large pin; and let it remain
thus till it is wanted for use. In this state it ought to be kept twelve
months; it may, however, in case of necessity, be used a few days after
it has received the second salting; but it will not be as strong as if
kept a longer time. To prepare the rennet for use, take a handful of the
leaves of the sweet-brier, the same quantity of rose and bramble leaves;
boil them in a gallon of water, with three or four handfuls of salt,
about a quarter of an hour; strain off the liquor, and, having let it
stand until perfectly cool, put it into an earthen vessel, and add to it
the maw prepared as above. To this add a sound, good lemon, stuck round
with about a quarter of an ounce of cloves, which give the rennet an
agreeable flavor. The longer the bag remains in the liquor, the
stronger, of course, will be the rennet. The amount, therefore,
requisite to turn a given quantity of milk, can only be ascertained by
daily use and observation. A sort of average may be something less than
a half pint of good rennet to fifty gallons of milk. In Gloucestershire,
they employ one third of a pint to coagulate the above quantity.