Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1884-09-25
.5atlp Rfnnebri journal.
Cheese for Home Use.


use,n we take from the Farmers Adyo-
cate, published at Ontario, Canada. The
author, Miss Maggie Webster, of Prince
Edward Island, is practical cheese max
er. Her essay won one of the prizes offered
BY the Advocate. 1t may help those no
are DESTROYS of making few cheeses for
home use, during the summer, when it is
often difficult keeping the cream good for
butter making.
Every pound OF cheese requires ten lbs.
of milk, and ten pound cheese is about
as small a one as can be conveniently
made. A clean tub which will hold the milk,
and boiler large enough to hold ten gal
Ions, will be needed. A small press,
which any smart boy can make. with lever
to hang a stone upon, will also be required
and then the know how" is all the rest
Making cheese is a chemical operation,
and depends greatly, like all other such
work, upon temperature. One cannot be
safe without a thermometer, as a rule oil
the thumb will not be precise enough.
The first thing to do is to bring the milk
to a temperature OF ninety degrees. This
makes soft cheese; higher tempera-
ture will make hard one. The milk may
be of two milkings; the evening milk set
in deep pail in the cellar, and stirred
late at night and early in the morning, to
keep the cream from separating; and the
morning milk mixed with it as 1t is strain
ed after milking. If any cream has risen
on the evenings mix, it may be skinned
off The evenings milk may be warmed
to one hundred degrees, and then added
to the mornings milk, which will be
about eighty degrees; the whole will then
be about the right temperature, which
is ninety degrees. The rennet is then
added This is the liquid made by steep
ing piece of the dried stomach of a
sucking calf in warm water. For one
hundred pounds of milk, or forty five
quarts, piece OF the rennet about as large
as ones thumb, or two inches long by one
inch wide, is put in quart of warm water
in the evening, with half tablespoonful
of salt. In the morning this liquid is
strained into the warmed milk in the tub,
and well stirred through it. The tub is
then covered to keep the milk warm until
the curd is formed, which will be in about
halt an hour.
AS soon as the curd is formed enough to
cut, long bladed knife is drawn through
it both ways, so as to cut the mass into
inch cubes This causes the whey to sep
arate. and when this separation has been
effected, the whey is dipped out or drawn
off. and the curd gathered into mass at
one side of the tub, the tub being raised at
one side to cause the whey to drain off.
The tub is kept covered to retain the heat,
or if the curd has cooled considerably, the
whey that has been drawn off is heated up
to 100 degrees and turned on to the curd
until it is warmed through again, and the
whey is drawn off. The curd remains
thus for about an hour, until it attains a
very slight degree of acidty, when it is
broken up fine with the hands, sailed with
about half an ounce of salt to the pound
of curd, and put into the hoop.
The hoop for ten-pound cheese should
be about eight inches in diameter and ten
inches deep. |, has neither top nor bot
tom. 1t is placed upon a smooth board or
a bench. and the curd is pressed down
into it with the hands. When the curd is
all loose, cover is placed upon it, and
the hoop is put under the lever. which
presses down upon a block resting in the
cover. Very little pressure is required,
and this only until the curd has become
solid enough to keep its shape; twenty.
four hours in the press is quite enough
the cheese being turned twice in thai
time. The cheese is theu taken out and
the outside is rubbed with butter and
wrapped in cotton bandage, the edges
of which are turned down on the two faces
for an inch or so. The cheese is ther
placed in cool room or cellar, and is
turned every day for a month, after which
ii should be turned every week for another
month"; when it is fit for use.
A very nice cheese for immediate use
may be made in smaller quantities. The
milk is cured in the same way as above
mentioned, but as soon as the curd is SCI
1t is dipped out and put into molds six
inches in diameter and three inches deep
resting upon clean straw, through which
the whey drains off onto the board under
it and drops into pan. The molds with
the curd in them are turned daily, and in
three or four days it is firm enough to be
turned out of the hoop on clean straw
when it is sprinkled with salt and turned
daily for a month. when the cheeses NAV
be put into cool cellar to ripen for a
week or two longer, and are fit for use
Skinned milk cheese made in this way
is very well favored and is very nutritious
and furnish an agreeable change of diet
for farmers family, and, indeed, sell
very readily in village stores when they
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