CHAPTER X. COLOR.
One would hardly think of associating cheese-making with the fine arts; yet, in what other light can we view the subject of color? It adds nothing to the quality of the cheese, but rather detracts from it. It is expensive and troublesome, and grows more so every year, as the demand for annotto runs up the price and leads to adulteration. But as long as we make cheese for a foreign market, we must adapt our goods to the tastes of that market, whether they be physical or mental. Our home market would, perhaps, not suffer from the omission of color; but the English market demands, to a large extent, highly-colored cheese. The Liverpool market will take a small quantity of pale cheese, but it does not equal more than one-fifth of the demand of the English market. A few factories, which sell exclusively to buyers who supply the Liverpool demand for pale cheese, may safely omit the color; but all which depend on the general market cannot safely do so. The London market specially demands a high color, and it is no less exacting now than it has been heretofore. The cry of buyers generally is, "Keep up the color!" The exceptions to this are few, and are confined to those who have special orders for pale cheese to supply the demand above indicated.
The English consumer acquired his taste for golden-hued cheese before the American make found any considerable market abroad—indeed, before we had much cheese to sell. The first object in coloring seems to have been to give a rich butter color. In this way, cheese was made to appear rich whether it really was so or not. But the shade has been considerably intensified and the English eye is best pleased with the color produced by the use of prime annotto, with which it has become familiar. This may be a prejudice, but it is a comparatively harmless one; and since our customer is willing to pay for it, there seems to be no good reason why it should not be gratified. It is for our interest to please the eye as well as the appetite of so large a buyer of our products as England. She wants about four-fifths of her cheese highly but nicely colored.
The complaint among buyers generally is, that color is too low. In reply to suggestions about the fact, makers often say that they never used more coloring, but it does not produce the desired effect. They have paid a high price for what was supposed to be prime annotto, but it proves to be extensively adulterated, and therefore weak. This is not the complaint of all, but of many. Some have adopted the use of prepared annotto, and find it cheaper and more satisfactory. When prime annotto could readily be had, it was cheaper to buy the basket and prepare it themselves. But now, one poor basket, during a season, imposes a loss greater than the difference in price between the prepared and the unprepared.
There is another evil about the use of poor annotto. It is not only expensive and does not give the desired color, but what color it does give fades out with age, and leaves the cheese with a cloudy, mottled appearance, which is very offensive to the eye of our best customers. Again, where poor annotto is bought in the basket and prepared at the factory, it contains a large amount of sediment, and this sediment, often containing deleterious substances, too frequently gets into the cheese. The liquid is not properly settled and racked off. This affords another argument in favor of buying prepared annotto, which, if properly put up, is free from sediment.
Those who prefer to buy the basket annotto and prepare it themselves, should buy only on the warrant of the dealer that it is what it is recommended to be. The dealer should test a sample of his annotto, before offering it for sale, and know precisely what he is selling. Buyers by thus purchasing only of well-known dealers, who sell upon honor, will discourage rascality. This is the only method we see for keeping the spurious article out of market, and securing satisfactory results in coloring.
We would suggest to those who prepare their own annotto, that they use concentrated ley or potash. By doing so, they will secure just as good a shade as they can by using ley from wood-ashes, and not only save the trouble of bothering with a leach, but secure uniform strength. Two leaches will seldom turn out ley of the same strength. Sometimes it will be strong and satisfactory. But if you happen to get a lot of soft wood ashes in your leach, the ley will be weak, imperfectly dissolve the annotto, and materially injure the liquid.
In fact, it is difficult to get your coloring twice alike by the use of a common leach. But with concentrated ley or potash, the same quantities or proportions of materials, mixed in the same way, will produce the same result. You can therefore keep your color even, and will not be called upon to experiment and change your hand every time you prepare a new batch of annotto. The difference in expense will be trifling, and rather in favor of the use of potash, if time and trouble are counted of any value.
The prepared annotto ought to be kept in a stone jar, as the ley operates injuriously upon wood, and is liable to leave a tub in a leaky condition as the liquid is used out and the tub dries. Where annotto is purchased already prepared, of course it comes in vessels suitable to keep it in; but when prepared at the factory, a receptacle has to be provided, and nothing is better than stone or earthen-ware. In hot weather, the liquid is liable to smell badly from the action of the heat on it. A little salt stirred in will be found useful as a preventive against this.
It is not necessary to discuss at length the question of the effect of coloring on the quality of the cheese. The introduction of a strong alkaline preparation cannot be without some effect; and when that happens to be adulterated with some vile substance, the effect cannot be otherwise than injurious. The annotto itself is generally conceded to be harmless; and the ley is, at most, but a neutralizer of the lactic acid, but the quantity is not sufficient, perhaps, to produce any perceptible result. At all events, color is demanded; annotto, prepared with ley or potash, is the accepted material; so we have only to color with annotto to suit the taste of our customer.
We are assured that nicely colored cheese will bring from a cent to a cent and a half a pound more than the same quality of cheese will bring when pale. Buyers in some instances advise the making of pale cheese because they have a special order for it; but they usually expect to get it a little under the highest market quotations, and factorymen who allow themselves to drop the color on the advice of an interested buyer, because it is easy and costs nothing directly to do so, run the risk of being caught and of losing a great deal more than they can save by omitting the coloring. We never heard of a lot of cheese being condemned because it was too nicely colored; but we frequently hear of complaints and losses because cheese is too pale. The chances are at least four to one in favor of high-colored cheese; and even the fifth chance is not positively against color, though the other four are strongly against lack of color. He who wishes to have the widest range of markets, and to command the best markets, must pay strict attention to color—not only must he color, but color well and evenly.
We have an objection to color, for reasons satisfactory to ourselves; and buyers can have no interest in inducing makers to color their cheese, beyond the fact that it makes it more marketable—and in this, patrons and factorymen have a much greater interest than dealers can have. The market demands a rich, even color, and will not be satisfied without it. We say, therefore, as a matter of dollars and cents—not of taste, choice or convenience—keep up the color.
We will give two recipes for preparing annotto: 1. To five pounds of prime annotto put five gallons of strong ley, made from wood ashes; gradually heat up and dissolve the annotto, care being taken to not scorch it on the bottom of the kettle. Of course thorough stirring is essential. When the annotto is all dissolved, add five pounds of sal soda and five gallons of soft water. Then gently boil the whole for twenty or thirty minutes. This makes about ten gallons of prepared coloring. If boiled away to less, add sufficient ley and soft water, in equal quantities, to make that amount. Some omit the sal soda; but it is generally believed that it not only adds strength to the preparation, but improves the color by giving it more of a rich, buttery hue, instead of a red. The whole, when sufficiently cooled to handle safely, should be set in a tub, with a faucet two or three inches from the bottom, to settle. When settled, it can be drawn off, and is ready for use.
2. Mix in the proportion of five quarts of water to half a pound of concentrated ley, and one pound of prime annotto. First dissolve the ley in the water, by heating and stirring, and then add the annotto, and dissolve it. Boil gently for half an hour. Care, as with the other preparation, should be taken not to burn it. Settle and rack off. Then your liquid is ready for use.
The second recipe is the one most used, and is easiest to prepare, as it avoids the labor, perplexity and risk of making the ley, which may not always be of the desired strength, as the ashes may not be the same. But if ashes are used, hot water is best to leech through them. A quart of salt to ten gallons of preparation will improve its keeping qualities.