TAINTED MILK.
The most abominable of all things in a cheese-factory is tainted milk.
It means floating curds, "huffy" cheese, bad flavor and poor prices.
Yet, as milk is now managed, most factories will, in hot weather, get
occasionally caught with a mess of tainted milk. There are hard work,
anxiety and unsatisfactory results in it for the cheese-maker, and
dissatisfaction and small profits for the patron. Such things never
ought to be; but, when such a catastrophe happens, like other
disagreeable things, it has to be borne and the best made of it that
circumstances will permit.
We know of no way to make good cheese out of tainted milk, and have had
comparatively little experience with it--though quite as much as we
desire. But from our own knowledge and what we can learn from the
experience of others, if we had a tainted mess of milk to work up, we
should heat it up as soon as possible, cut the curd fine, cook it
thoroughly and develop the acid as much as we thought the curd would
bear and stick together so as to bandage well. If we had another batch,
in which the whey was all right, we would draw off the whey from the
tainted batch as early as possible and add whey from the sweet batch to
the tainted curd, to cook it in. If not, as soon as cooked, we would
draw off the whey and allow the acid to develop in the curd. We presume
sour whey added to the batch would be an advantage in developing the
acid, and acid is what seems to be needed to check the decomposition and
further tainting of the curd. An extra quantity of salt would doubtless
be an advantage in stopping further taint. The curd should be cooled to
the temperature of the atmosphere, and well aired before being put to
press, and the pressing should be thorough.
Old cheese-makers have told us that they thought they found an advantage
in washing and cooling a tainted curd with ice water--that is, by
chilling it. It seems to us that, though this might check taint for the
time being, it would hasten it when the cheese warmed up in curing, as
butter or meat will spoil rapidly after having come in contact with ice,
if exposed to the atmosphere.
Prime cheese never can be made of bad milk. But, if milk is not too
badly tainted, a mess managed on the principles we have indicated will
make a fair cheese--one that will suit many palates. A curd made of sour
milk may be improved by washing out some of the acid by the use of warm
water. With such a curd, extra cooking is an important point; but
generally there is less cooking, owing to the hurry to get the curd out
of the sour whey. It is in almost the opposite condition, so far as acid
is concerned, of curd made from tainted milk. The latter has too little
acid; the former too much. We therefore want to develop the acid in a
tainted curd, and to retard or diminish it in a sour one.