Milch Cows and Dairy Farming / Comprising the Breeds, Breeding, and Management, in Health and Disease, of Dairy and Other Stock, the Selection of Milch Cows, with a Full Explanation of Guenon's Method; The Culture of Forage Plants, and the Production of Milk, Butter, and Cheese: Embodying the Most Recent Improvements, and Adapted to Farming in the United States and British Provinces. With a Treatise upon the Dairy Husbandry of Holland; To Which Is Added Horsfall's System of Dairy Management

by Charles Louis Flint

Fig. 123.

Fig. 124.

When it has come to this consistence the forming of the cheese begins. The dairyman has for this purpose a cheese-mould standing before him, and lays on the bottom a layer of cheese without spice, and this is called the blind layer. The cheese tub or mould, [Figs. 123] and [124], is used only for this first moulding. It is a wooden vat, made of staves from one to one and a half inches thick, and is nine and a half to twelve and a half inches in diameter, and about ten inches high, bound at the bottom and top with stout hoops. The bottom of oak-wood, put in very carefully, is pierced with holes for letting off any moisture that may remain in the cheese. On the top of the tub a cover is exactly fitted, to sink down upon the cheese when the pressure is applied. This cover is of oak, one and a half inches thick, and has a cross-piece three and a half inches thick, which serves as a handle.

The first layer of cheese is quite firmly pressed down or trodden into the mould with the hands or feet, and then follows a layer of curd mixed with spices. The mixture is made best by putting as much of the pasty curd from the vat into a tub as will form one layer in the mould. Over this the spice is strewn, caraway and some pounded cloves, and the mass is then worked over, when it is placed as a new layer into the mould. Upon the second layer some coarsely-pounded cloves are generally scattered, or they are stuck whole over the surface. After that the second layer is pressed in like the first, and the third follows, and so on till the mould is full. On the uppermost and firmly pressed layer is laid the cover. The mould thus carefully filled is now brought under a press, which, partly on account of its length, is called the “long-press,” and sometimes the “first” or “cheese press,” because the cheese first comes under it. This press is seen in [Fig. 125]. It stands on four short legs, and consists of upright beams fixed upon a platform, and a long beam, acting as a lever, with one end fastened by a rivet or bolt. The other end is loaded with weights to any desirable extent, as appears in the cut. The power of the press may also be increased or diminished by shifting the end of the lever to the lower or upper hole.

Fig. 125.

When the mould is put under the press it is set into a shallow, four-cornered wooden box or pan on the foot-board. This pan is furnished with grooves at the side, through which the whey can escape. The pressure may still further be increased by putting a block on the lid of the mould, as appears in the press. It is this powerful pressure which gives the cheese the high quality for which it is distinguished above others. The whey still remaining in the curd runs off through the holes in the bottom of the mould, when the strong pressure is applied, into the pan, and is caught in another pan which sits under the press.