"After the milk has been strained, to free it from any impurities, it is
conveyed into a cooler placed upon feet like a table, having a spigot at
the bottom for drawing off the milk. This, when sufficiently cooled, is
drawn off into pans, and the cooler again filled. In so cases, the
cooler is large enough to hold a whole meal's milk at once. The rapid
cooling thus produced (which, however, is necessary only in hot weather,
and during the summer season) is found to be of essential utility in
retarding the process of fermentation, and thereby preventing putridity
from commencing in the milk before two meals of it can be put together.
Some have thought that the cheese might be improved by cooling the
evening's milk still more rapidly, and that this might be effected by
repeatedly drawing it off from and returning it into the cistern. When
the milk is too cold, a portion of it is warmed over the fire and mixed
with the rest.
"The coloring matter, (annatto,) in Cheshire, is added by tying up as
much of the substance as is thought sufficient in a linen rag, and
putting it into a half pint of warm water, to stand over night. The
whole of this infusion is, in the morning, mixed with the milk in the
cheese-tub, and the rag dipped in the milk and rubbed on the palm of the
hand as long as any of the coloring matter can be made to come away.
"The next operation is salting; and this is done, either by laying the
cheese, immediately after it comes out of the press, on a clean, fine
cloth in the vat, immersed in brine, to remain for several days, turning
it once every day at least; or by covering the upper surface of the
cheese with salt every time it is turned, and repeating the application
for three successive days, taking care to change the cloth twice during
the time. In each of these methods, the cheese, after being so treated,
is taken out of the vat, placed upon the salting bench, and the whole
surface of it carefully rubbed with salt daily for eight or ten days. If
it be large, a wooden hoop or a fillet of cloth is employed to prevent
renting. The cheese is then washed in warm water or whey, dried with a
cloth, and laid on what is called the _drying bench_. It remains there
for about a week, and is thence removed to the _keeping house_. In
Cheshire, it is found that the greatest quantity of salt used for a
cheese of sixty pounds is about three pounds; but the proportion of this
retained in the cheese has not been determined.
"When, after salting and drying, the cheeses are deposited in the
cheese-room or store-house, they are smeared all over with fresh butter,
and placed on shelves fitted to the purpose, or on the floor. During the
first ten or fifteen days, smart rubbing is daily employed, and the
smearing with butter repeated. As long, however, as they are kept, they
should be every day turned; and the usual practice is to rub them three
times a week in summer and twice in winter.