In the manufacture of cheese the constituents of milk demand our
first attention, as we cannot intelligently study a subject without
investigating its primary principles. Cow’s milk contains:
Water 864 parts.
Nitrogenous matter (caseine and albumen) 43 ”
Sugar of milk 52 ”
Fat 37 ”
Mineral salts 4 ”
—————
1,000
The solids represented above are in the form of minute globules, and
the serum in which they float is the water or “whey.” It is to unite
these globules and separate them from the whey that is the primary
function of cheese making. It so happens that rennet, the active
agent in this process, besides exerting an automatic, chemical action
on milk, imparts to the solids new and vigorous properties that give
cheese a medicinal value to the human stomach, namely, an inceptor of
digestion. It is imperative that a cheese maker understands enough
about milk to instantly detect the slightest change from its sweet,
pure, normal condition. Milk as a fluid is highly sensitive to
unclean odors, and when it absorbs them in a greater or less degree,
the maker should, by an olfactory test, discover the taint. Milk
that has been tainted by a retention of the animal heat, not having
been cooled when freshly drawn, will give off a rank, burned smell,
nauseous in the extreme. If the taint was absorbed from odors, the
peculiar scent of the particular stench will be indelibly impressed
on the fluid. Mature or sour milk is more to be desired for cheese
manufacture than milk poisoned by taint. In fact, a _slight_ maturity
of milk is necessary—or, at least, desirable—to produce a fine
cheese, the same as mature cream is required to develop good butter,
only in the former the “ripeness” must be scarcely perceptible,
while in the latter it must be well advanced. All tainted milk, and
all milk that is “old” and nearly sour, should be unconditionally
rejected at the cheese factory for manufacture. Do not be afraid of
financially losing by such a rule. It is none too stringent, and
in the end it will give your goods a trade reputation that will be
secure and impregnable. The idea that really good cheese can be made
out of poor milk is disproved by chemistry and common sense.