The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1884-11-14
Cheese for HON. Use.

The following essay on "How to make
the Cheapest and Best Cheese for Home
Use," we take from the Farmers Advo-
cate, published at Ontario, Canada.
The author, Miss Maggie Webster, of
Prince Edward Island, is q practical
cheese maker. Her essay won one of
the prizes offered by the Advocate. It
may help those who are DESTROYS of
making a 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
pounds of milk, and a ten-pound cheese
is about as small o n as can be con-
veniently made. A clean tub which
will hold the milk, and a boiler large
enough to hold ten gallons will be need
ed. A small press, which any smart
boy can make, with a 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 can not
be safe without a thermometer, as a
rule of the thumb will not be precise
enough.
The first thing to do is to bring the
milk to a temperature of 80 degrees.
This makes a soft cheese; a higher tenn.
perature will make a hard one. The
milk may be of two milkings; the even
ing milk, set in a deep pail in the cellar,
and stirred late at night and early in the
morning to keep the cream from sepa-
rating, andthe morning milk mixed with
it as it Is strained after milking. If any
cream has risen on the evenings milk it
may be skinned off. The evenings
milk may be warmed to 100 degrees and
then added to the fresh mornings milk,
which will be about 80 degrees; the
whole will then be about the right tenn
perature, which is 80 degrees. The
rennet is then added. This is the liquid
made by sleeping a piece of the dried
stomach of a sucking calf in warm
water. For 100 pounds of milk, or forty
five quarts, a piece OF the rennet about
as large as ones thumb, or two inches
long by one inch wide, is put in a quart
Of warm water in the evening, with half
a tablespoonful of salt. In the morning
this liquid is strained into the warm
milk in the tub, and we'll stirred
through it. The tub is then covered to
keep the milk warm until the curd is
formed, which will be in about half an
hour.
AS soon as the curd is formed enough
to cut, a long-bladed knife is drawn
through it both ways. SO as to cut the
mass into inch cubes. This causes the
whey to separate, and when this serara
ton has been effected, the whey is dipped
out or drawn off and the curd gathered
into a 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
one hundred degrees and turned onto
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
acidity, when it is broken up fine with
the hands, sailed with about half an
n of salt to the pound Of curd and
put into the hoop.
The hoop for a ten-pound cheese
should be about eight inches in diane
ter and ten inches deep. 1t has neither
top nor bottom. 1t is placed upon a
smooth board or a bench, and the curd
ispressed down into it with the hands.
When the curd is oil loose, a cover is
placed upon it, and the hoop is put
under the lever, which presses down
upon q 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 that
time. The cheese is then taken out
and the outside is rubbed with butter
and wrapped in a cotton bandage, the
edges of which are turned down on the
two faces for an inch or so. The cheese
is then placed in a cool room or cellar,
and is turned every day for q month,
after which it should be turned once o
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 curded in the same way as
above mentioned, but as soon as the
curd is set it is dipped out end put into
molds six inches in diameter and three
or four inches deep, resting upon clean
straw, through which the whey drains