CHAPTER XX. CURING.
There is no part of the process of making up milk and getting the product ready for market which requires more care and judgment, as well as some hard work, than curing. Few rooms are properly prepared for the purpose. They are left too open and barn-like, with no means of controlling the temperature. Factorymen generally seem to think that if the cheese is only made and put on the ranges, there is little or no need of making any further provision. We have seen cheese, which we believe had deteriorated from one to two cents a pound in value, because the curing process had not gone on properly. The curing rooms were full of cracks which let in the wind, cold or hot, dry or damp, as it might be, and the cheese stood on the ranges in the cold, damp atmosphere, turning to swill—to hog feed, instead of human food. The faces were cracked; the flavor was bad; "too much acid," the buyers said; the makers were perplexed, and quite sure they had not changed their hands from what they were when they made a good reputation; the patrons were dissatisfied, and the committeemen grumbled. There might have been other failings; but we are quite sure that no one has a right to expect prime cheese where there are not the proper facilities for curing. If the weather happens to be right, a barn may answer the purpose. But no one has a right to presume on always having favorable weather; and it is the part of wisdom to make preparations for all sorts of contingencies.
A curing-room should be made with a wind-proof wall. This would guard against sudden changes of weather, by keeping out both heat and cold. Sufficient air can be introduced through the windows, which should be made to open easily, and be provided with blinds. There should also be provision for supplying artificial heat, equally distributed throughout the building, and not from a red-hot stove set in the middle, or in one end or corner, where it will toast the cheeses near it, and leave those farther off to chill in the cold weather of spring and fall. If steam is used, the heating apparatus may be made to do the double work of cooking the curd, and warming the drying-room. This may be done by means of hot-air tubes, or by the use of steam-pipes running round the room. Of course it would cost a little at the beginning; but a curing room once properly fitted up would soon pay the extra expense in the saving of time, labor, care, vexation and money. A thousand and one annoyances would be guarded against, and the proprietor would have the satisfaction of knowing that he had got a good thing, which would insure the most that could be expected from the product of the cheese-vat, and build up a first-class reputation and a permanent business.
A curing-room should not only be kept at an equable temperature of 70° to 80°, but be well ventilated. The gases constantly emitted by the curing process should have a chance to freely escape and leave the atmosphere as pure and sweet as possible. There is no more sense in supposing that a cheese can cure properly and have a clean, wholesome flavor, if kept in a close, unventilated room, than that a human being can retain his health in impure air. The curing-room must be kept clean and sweet, dry and airy—not by allowing the wind to whistle through it as it listeth, but by a judicious system of heating and ventilating, which will allow the hot and chill blasts to blow harmlessly by.