The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1879-07-31
HOme.Made Cheese.

AS RENNET Is the principal agent IN
making cheese, that should be provided
first. If rennet extract can be OBJ
tanned that will be the best, because it
is always pure, and sweet, and uni
form in strength, and comes with di-
rections for using. But if it cannot be
had, rennet may be prepared by steep
ing a good clean and sweet rennet in a
weak brine at least two days in adj
vance, and giving it half-dozen or so
good rubbings before using. The next
thing will be a tub large enough to
hold two milkings of the dairy, with a
little room to spare; for four or five
cows a new wash-tub will do. 1t should
be accompanied with perforated d.
vision board about ten inches wide,
and just long enough to set down in
the middle Of the tub with a good fit;
also a half-round perforated board
Just the size Of one-half of the bottom
of the tub, with the round part beveled
to an edge on one side, both one-half
inch thick. The tub should also have
two spiggots or faucets at the bottom
and placed on opposite sides.
A thermometer will be wanted.
Some convenience for heating one mess
of milk so it will not get scorched must
be devised. For few COWS this may
be done on the kitchen stove or range,
with tin pan large enough to hold the
mess to be heated set in or over pan
or kettle containing water, or by some
similar means. Then something must
be provided for cutting the curd. If
but little cheese is to be made, carv-
ing knife or thin spatula with sharp
edges will do. If much is to be made,
it will pay to get five-bladed curd-
knife. There must also be provided
hoops of the right size, and form, and
number, which may be of wood or tin,
with wooden followers and cloths for
pressing. and press sufficient to give
a pressure of fifteen or twenty hundred
weight. Lastly, a place to cure the
cheese without much variation from
seventy degrees, and where it will not
be very damp or very dry. Exclusive
of place to set the milk and cure the
cheese, the whole apparatus for max
ing cheese from three to six COWS need
not cost more than ten dollars.
With this preparation we are ready
to begin. I assume that the milk is
furnished to the hand of the dairymaid
clean and sweet. When the night s
milk comes in it will be strained into
pans and set away where it will keep
cool and sweet through the night. In
the morning the cream should be dip
ped off and the milk emptied into the
tub. The mornings milk will be
heated, not enough TO warm the nights
mess, from ninety to ninety-four de-
grees. Our grand danes warmed the
nights milk, but we prefer to warm
the new milk. The new milk will be
improved by heating, the nights milk
will not. 1t would facilitate the work
to heat the cold milk, but good
cheese is preferable to one quickly
made. The cream should be put into
clean strainer, and after the hot and
cold milk have been mixed the cream
may be washed through the strainer by
pouring warm milk upon it. This
done, rennet enough should be thor
oughly stirred in to make coagulation
begin in twelve to fifteen minutes, and
the tub we'll covered to prevent cooling.
When the curd has become hard
enough to split with a clean fracture
before the finger as it is passed along,
the curd may be cut or carefully broken
into half-inch cubes and left awhile to
settle, when a portion of the whey may
be dipped off, and the curd again gent
ly worked to prevent it becoming q
solid mass again, and from the bottom,
so that no part shall be missed. Repeat
the stirring and dipping till the bulk of
the whey is we'll reduced, as it will be
in about an hour after the first stirring,
and then turn in water enough at one
hundred and forty to one hundred and
fifty degrees to raise the contents of the
tub three or four degrees, stirring care
fully in the meantime, that no part
shall heat faster than the rest. When
the bits of curd have had time enough
to warm through apply more water,
and so repeat till the whole comes up
to ninety-eight or one hundred degrees.
Then stir enough to prevent the curd
from adhering till it will begin to
squeak between the teeth, or spring
apart when pressed in the hand, when
stirring may cease and the curd be al
lowed to settle together, and left in
this condition ~ long a. it can be and
! not have the whey begin to turn sour.