CHAPTER XIX. TAINTED MILK.
The most abominable of all things in a cheese-factory is tainted milk. It means floating curds, "huffy" cheese, bad flavor and poor prices. Yet, as milk is now managed, most factories will, in hot weather, get occasionally caught with a mess of tainted milk. There are hard work, anxiety and unsatisfactory results in it for the cheese-maker, and dissatisfaction and small profits for the patron. Such things never ought to be; but, when such a catastrophe happens, like other disagreeable things, it has to be borne and the best made of it that circumstances will permit.
We know of no way to make good cheese out of tainted milk, and have had comparatively little experience with it—though quite as much as we desire. But from our own knowledge and what we can learn from the experience of others, if we had a tainted mess of milk to work up, we should heat it up as soon as possible, cut the curd fine, cook it thoroughly and develop the acid as much as we thought the curd would bear and stick together so as to bandage well. If we had another batch, in which the whey was all right, we would draw off the whey from the tainted batch as early as possible and add whey from the sweet batch to the tainted curd, to cook it in. If not, as soon as cooked, we would draw off the whey and allow the acid to develop in the curd. We presume sour whey added to the batch would be an advantage in developing the acid, and acid is what seems to be needed to check the decomposition and further tainting of the curd. An extra quantity of salt would doubtless be an advantage in stopping further taint. The curd should be cooled to the temperature of the atmosphere, and well aired before being put to press, and the pressing should be thorough.
Old cheese-makers have told us that they thought they found an advantage in washing and cooling a tainted curd with ice water—that is, by chilling it. It seems to us that, though this might check taint for the time being, it would hasten it when the cheese warmed up in curing, as butter or meat will spoil rapidly after having come in contact with ice, if exposed to the atmosphere.
Prime cheese never can be made of bad milk. But, if milk is not too badly tainted, a mess managed on the principles we have indicated will make a fair cheese—one that will suit many palates. A curd made of sour milk may be improved by washing out some of the acid by the use of warm water. With such a curd, extra cooking is an important point; but generally there is less cooking, owing to the hurry to get the curd out of the sour whey. It is in almost the opposite condition, so far as acid is concerned, of curd made from tainted milk. The latter has too little acid; the former too much. We therefore want to develop the acid in a tainted curd, and to retard or diminish it in a sour one.