If the milk you have in your vat is mature, or, in other words,
slightly tending toward sour, heat it as rapidly as possible when
preparing for the application of rennet. In the cool extremes of the
season heat milk to 86° Fahrenheit and in warm weather to 85° before
rennet is applied. If the milk is all right as to sweetness, as the
bulk of milk is, heat it up to the desired point gradually, stirring
it gently at frequent intervals with a long-handled dipper. You stir
for the purpose of keeping down the cream and evenly distributing the
warmth that is permeating the lacteal mass. You stir it with great
gentleness and care because milk globules are eggs in miniature, and,
like their large relatives of biped production, they must be handled
with care. If you wish to heat to 85° and have an under-heater vat
or fire flue beneath the milk, withdraw the fire before it has quite
reached that point, as the after warmth will carry it up a degree
or two. Be perfectly precise in all such little points, for on them
hinge big results.
With milk in normal condition as to maturity, standing at a
temperature of 85° in both ends of the vat, and with no cream visible
on the surface, you are ready to take another step in the course
of manufacture. If colored cheese are desired, now apply annottoine
sufficient to give a rich, golden hue. Know exactly by experiment
its strength as a dye, always know the quantity of milk to a pound
and portion out accordingly. Work the coloring into the fluid with
the same gentleness with which you have heretofore manipulated it
while raising the temperature. When the milk is all of one even,
yellow tinge, attesting that the annotto is represented equally in
every part, it is ready for the real inceptor of cheese, rennet.
The tendency of modern cheese making is toward quick coagulation
of milk. The larger infusion of rennet necessary for this purpose
begets cheese that can be quickly cured for a market where they are
expected to be soon consumed. The old rule of coagulation in twenty
minutes is now nearly obsolete, although it will always hold good for
cheese of long keeping qualities. Fall made cheese that are expected
to be consumed during the winter months should be strengthened for
age by coagulation in from fifteen to eighteen minutes. When we are
dealing with the average spring and summer make, trade demands more
perishable stock and we must cater to it. If you do not know the
strength of your rennet and you want the milk to thicken in eight or
nine minutes, as it should do, previously test the lactic juice by
putting a teaspoonful into a tumbler of milk kept warm at 85°. If
the glass of fluid thickens in five minutes, you need one quart of
such rennet juice for every 800 pounds of milk to effect coagulation,
as stated above. If the tested quantity thickens in less or longer
time, a proportionate less or greater amount is required for your
purpose. Measure the rennet extract with exactness, so that there
will be no miss in its proper adjustment to the milk, and then
incorporate it into the vat of lacteal fluid. In infusing it into the
milk structure, manipulate your dipper with the same caution that has
characterized your former attitude toward the fragilely constructed
fluid under your hand. After stirring for five minutes, withdraw the
dipper and let the surface of the milk come to a calm. Then pass
the bottom of the empty dipper lightly over the vat to drive back
any particles of cream that may be struggling to the surface. The
milk will soon begin to roll up in the wake of the tin utensil in
your hand in a rapidly thickening wave. Immediately withdraw the
dipper, for the rennet has accomplished its mission. Turning to your
vat cover, stretch it tightly over the fermenting milk. The cover
mentioned should consist of a strip of canvas cloth or sheeting
running the entire length of the vat and lapping slightly over its
width. The cloth should be tacked to lath or other light wooden
strips the width of the vat, and these supports should be about
two feet apart. When not in use, the cover can be rolled up like
a section of carpeting and is not at all awkward to handle. Place
the cover in a closed form on one end of the vat, and, unrolling it
as fast as you walk, you can stretch it to the other end in half a
minute, thus keeping your milk snug and close. I prefer to use such
a cover every day during the season, and they are indispensable in
spring and fall. Without some such device the crust of the rapidly
forming curd is chilled, retarding the action of the rennet, and
the temperature of the whole mass is perceptibly lowered, which is
not only undesirable but positively detrimental to the natural and
perfect formation of cheese.
In the course of twenty or thirty minutes after coagulation examine
your crude cheese material and see if it is ready to cut up. Thrust
the forefinger into the mass, and if the curd will split cleanly in
front of it, it is ready for the knives. Milk should stand about
forty-five minutes after the infusion of rennet before it is cut, but
if the milk is very mature in quality rennet will act on the caseine
more spontaneously. It may be firm enough to cut before that time;
if, in such a case, the same amount of rennet had previously acted
slowly on a proportionate quantity of milk, you can at once consider
the quick action as a fair warning from nature that you must scald
your curd in haste to keep ahead of the swiftly multiplying acid
germs. As previously stated, as soon as the curd mass will cleave
brittlely over the finger prepare your knives. First pick up the
one with horizontal blade and hold it a second in hot water. This
will warm the steel so that it will not chill the curd. Cut the mass
lengthwise, turning corners deftly without lifting the instrument
once until you are through. Then lay this knife aside for its work
is done. Insert the perpendicular knife also in hot water and with
it cut the curd first crosswise, then lengthwise, then crosswise
again, being sure to lap over the course of each cut. The curd is
now in small cubes that are fast discharging whey from their severed
cellular system. They gravitate toward the bottom of the vat. If the
curd has been cleft by the blades, gently and with great care, the
rising whey has a clear, greenish cast, attesting that it is freed
from most of the albuminous substances of the milk and will render a
good ratio to the patrons.