GREASING CHEESE.
When a cheese is first removed from the hoops, care should be taken that
its face be not allowed to dry and crack before it is greased with hot
whey-butter. Nothing has been found so good as whey-butter for the
purpose of greasing cheese, and it should be applied hot, and as soon
after the cheese is set on the range as possible. If it dries at all, we
think it injurious to the formation of a smooth, glassy face; and if it
dries much, the face is sure to check and present an unsatisfactory
appearance, besides furnishing convenient places for the cheese-fly to
deposit its eggs.
A very convenient thing for applying the hot butter is a paint-brush. It
is much handier and better every way than a swab. But care must be
taken, or the bristles of the brush will get scorched. This can be
avoided by removing the brush from the dish when through using it, and
not putting it in the grease again until you are ready to grease the
faces of your cheeses.
A pressed iron dish with a handle riveted on, is handy for melting the
grease. There is no danger of melting out the bottom, or melting off the
handle, and you are less liable to burn yourself or spill your grease
than you are if you melt the whey butter in an old basin, which very
soon gets burnt and leaky.
Little conveniences, like the iron dish and brush we have mentioned,
help a great deal, in the course of a season, about cheese-making; and a
cheese-maker had better furnish them at his own expense, if his
employers are too stingy to do it, than not to have them. There are
many such little things that greatly assist in doing work easily and in
keeping neat and tidy. One can do without them, on the principle that a
farmer can hoe his corn without a cultivator, but it does not pay.
If a cheese cannot be greased as soon as taken out, spread a cloth or
put a turner over it, or both. This will keep the moisture from escaping
and the air from immediate contact with the face of the cheese.
As whey-butter is the best and nearly the only material used for
greasing the faces of cheeses, it will not be amiss and may be of use to
inexperienced cheese-makers, to say a few words on the mode of trying
out the whey-butter. Prepare a skimmer with a long handle, which may be
cheaply made by punching the bottom of an old tin-pan full of holes and
fastening a wooden handle to it with bits of wire. A shrub five or six
feet long and of suitable size, with a short crook at the larger end, is
convenient. It can be split at the crooked end, slipped on the edge of
the pan and wired there without much trouble.
Hang a large kettle--a cauldron is best--in a convenient place, and fill
it about two-thirds fall of the grease and scum which you skim off from
the vat. It is yeasty stuff, and requires a good deal of room, at first,
to swell in when the heat is started. Keep up a moderate fire, so as to
boil it gently without scorching, and continue the boiling until the
cheesy portion is sufficiently cooked to sink to the bottom. Then allow
the batch to rest and cool down. Dip off the butter, while still warm
and oily, and carefully strain it into a clean tub. When cooled
sufficiently to begin to thicken somewhat, a little salt sprinkled on
the surface and thoroughly stirred in, as the farmers' wives sometimes
salt their lard, will help prevent it from getting rancid and stinking.
Set it in a cool place, and keep it covered tightly. Near the close of
the fall's operations, a nice tub of whey butter should be thus prepared
and set by for use the next spring--for, in the cold spring weather,
when cheese-making first commences, very little cream will rise on the
whey-vat, and it will take some time before a batch can be procured.
In applying the whey-butter to the face of the cheese, no more should be
used than the surface of the cheese will absorb and leave it moist and
shiny. If enough is put on so that it will cool in streaks and stick to
whatever it touches, it should be wiped off, or it will daub the turner
or bench, and not only make unnecessary work in cleaning, but prevent a
hard, smooth rind from forming. Many give themselves a good deal of
annoyance by putting on too much grease.
The next morning after the cheese has been set on the range, and had its
upper face greased with hot whey-butter, it should be turned over, when
a similar application of hot butter should be made to the other face. If
the cheese is well made and of good milk, and properly greased, as we
have indicated, more greasing will seldom be needed. A little care will
determine when more is needed, if at all. If the face begins to look dry
and feel harsh, in spite of thorough rubbing with the hands, call the
grease-brush into requisition again. In hot, dry weather--especially if
the air is allowed to strike the face of the cheese--a timely
application of more whey-butter may keep the face from cracking and save
considerable trouble.
The cheeses should be regularly turned, for the first fortnight, every
day, and have their faces thoroughly rubbed and polished with the naked
hand. Nothing else will do so much to help form a satisfactory rind. A
cloth carried along should be used to wipe off any surplus grease on the
bench or turner, so as to prevent its daubing the next cheese and making
additional work. This same cloth, thus made greasy, will answer the
additional use of wiping off any mould that may be found collecting on
the bandage.
In this way, a lot of cheese, with comparatively little additional work
and trouble, but a trifle more attention, can be kept looking clean and
wholesome; and if this neatness does not actually help improve the
quality of the cheese--we think it does--it will so much improve the
appearance, that you will not only be rewarded by the satisfaction
afforded, but can safely count on a fraction more from the buyer--enough
to more than pay for all the labor bestowed in curing.