SCALDING.
If the milk was mature, or too much rennet was incorporated with perfectly sweet milk, the whey will separate from the solids very rapidly. In either case it wants an immediate application of heat after cutting. Curd from fairly good milk, with a proper infusion of rennet, should stand for a few moments after cutting before heat is turned on. Never apply heat under any circumstances until the raw curd has all disappeared beneath the whey’s surface. As soon as the heat has warmed the bottom of the vat, bare your arms and with the hands gently lift the new cut mass to the surface. In this lifting give it a rolling motion, so that the cubes will all fall apart and exchange positions with one another.
Two dangers now arise and you must be prepared to steer straight between them. First, as the heat comes surging up from beneath against the tin bottom of the vat it makes it very hot below and cool on top. If the raw curd settles but a moment against the hot bottom it is liable to be blistered and seared over, to the subsequent detriment of the whole mass. Of course, it needs a slow application of heat on the start and almost constant agitation, and here comes danger number two. If you do not stir your curd sufficiently in heating, the quality of your goods is at stake, and if you do not stir judiciously, or stir too often and too harshly, your milk ratio is in jeopardy. By exercising good judgment, care and caution you can avoid the two extremes and make each danger your willing servant. If your milk on the start is sweet and pure, allow the heat to go up slowly until it touches the desired point. If, on the other hand, it is ripe, old or sour, push the heat with all vigor and scald as quickly as possible. With milk all right, about three-fourths of an hour’s time should be consumed in bringing up the heat to the scalding limit, but if otherwise get it there in fifteen minutes or half an hour, according to the exigency of the case.
But, to return to the subject of scalding a vat of curd in normal condition. On the start, using your hands as described, manipulate it with such care that the tender cubes are not bruised and yet are kept separate enough so that they will not form into a compact mass on the warm bottom. All this time the whey is percolating from the blocks and they are shrinking in size and becoming of tougher texture. As soon as the curd begins to assume a slightly elastic consistency begin operations with a rake. If you have an idea that curd wants to be stirred all of the time through the scalding period, at once disabuse your mind of it. Such a notion is antediluvian in its conception and disastrous in its results, but, strange to say, it is the predominating feature of the know-it-all young maker’s knowledge. Novices at the business are sure to stir too often and too violently. This knocks off the yield and also injures the quality of the cheese. For myself, above all patent devices in the shape of wire rakes for agitating curd, I prefer a simple wooden hand hay rake. Get one made of wood throughout and saw off the handle, leaving the stub about four feet long; this will insure convenient handling. When the moment arrives in the early cooking departure to use the rake, take the utensil described and, inserting it teeth up in the whey and curd midway of the vat at one end, push it gently from you to within two inches of the farther edge, letting the back of the rake head slide on the bottom of the vat. Be sure and do not let the teeth and head of the agitator hit the side of the vat, as curd is pushed before it which does not want the substance and nutriment crushed out of it that way. As the rake approaches the side of the vat give it an easy, undulating, upward swing, ending by a draw of the rake toward you. This will cause the curd that you have been pushing from you along the bottom of the vat to boil up with the whey in the wake of the retreating rake. If the motion has been gone through with easily and carefully, you will at once see that the curd within the rake’s sweep has been thoroughly agitated without bruising. After the manoeuvre described, do not change position but drawing the rake toward you, with its head scraping the bottom of the vat, produce a gentle ebullition of curd and whey in the same way as that just manifested. Step along, repeating the pushing and drawing of the rake until the farther end of the vat is reached. Then, push the curd with the rake up on one side and down on the other of the vat, changing ends, as it were, with the cooking cheese. Once over a vat in this way, if accomplished properly, thoroughly separates the curd particles and evens up the heat through the whole mass. Now, let the rake rest but have the heat go on for a few moments. When the curd begins to pack slightly (perhaps in five minutes, more or less, according to the previous maturity of the milk), again stir it up in the manner described and again let it rest, repeating the periods of agitation until it is scalded up to the desired temperature. In regard to the right temperature at which to scald cheese we cannot hope to give on paper much more than superficial information. Every phase of cheese making, to be thoroughly understood, requires practical experience, but hints and pointers on paper are often just what are needed to help puzzled ones out of awkward dilemmas encountered in the business. Hence, we shall, in the most clear and logical manner possible, give the reader our views, derived from experience, on scalding temperature.