“It is commonly made by putting the night’s cream to the milk of the following morning with the rennet, great care being taken that the milk and the cream are thoroughly mixed together, and that they both have the proper temperature. The rennet should also be very pure and sweet. As soon as the milk is curdled, the whole of it is taken out, put into a sieve gradually to drain, and moderately pressed. It is then put into a case or box, of the form that it is intended to be; for, on account of its richness, it would separate and fall to pieces were not this precaution adopted. Afterwards it is turned every day on dry boards, cloth-binders being tied around it, which are gradually tightened as occasion requires. After it is removed from the box or hoop, the cheese must be closely bound with cloths and changed daily, until it becomes sufficiently compact to support itself. When these cloths are taken away, each cheese has to be rubbed over with a brush once every day. If the weather is moist or damp, this is done twice a day during two or three months. It is occasionally powdered with flour, and plunged into hot water. This hardens the outer coat and favors the internal fermentation, and thus produces what is called the ripening of the cheese. Sometimes it is made in a net like a cabbage-net, which gives it the form of an acorn.”
The maturity of Stilton cheeses is sometimes hastened by putting them in a bucket, and covering them over with horse-dung.
Gloucester Cheese
is likewise quite celebrated for its richness, piquancy, and delicacy of flavor, and justly commands a high price in the market. The management of the milk up to the time of curding is similar to that of Cheshire; a cheese, often being made of one meal, requires no additional heat to raise it to a proper temperature. After the curd is cut into small squares, the whey is carefully drained off through a hair strainer. The cutting is repeated every thirty minutes till the whey is removed, when it is put into vats and covered with dry cloths, and placed in the press. After remaining a sufficient length of time, it is put into a curd-mill and cut or ground into small pieces, when it is again packed in fine canvas cloth, and put in the cheese-vat. Hot water or whey is poured over the cloth, to harden the rind and prevent its cracking. “The curd is next turned out of the vat into the cloth, and, the inside of the vat being washed with whey, the inverted curd with the cloth is returned to the vat. The cloth is then folded over, and the vat put into the press for two hours, when it is taken out, and dry cloths applied during the course of the day. It is then replaced in the press until salted, which operation is generally performed about twenty-four hours after it is made. In salting the cheese, it is rubbed with finely-powdered salt, and this is thought to make the cheese more smooth and solid than when the salting process is performed upon the curd. The cheese is after this returned to the vat, and put under the press, in which several are placed, the newest at the bottom and the oldest on the top. The salting is repeated three times, twenty-four hours being allowed to intervene between each; and the cheese is finally taken from the press to the cheese-room in the course of five days. In the cheese-room it is turned over every day for a month, when it is cleaned of all scurf, and rubbed over with a woollen cloth dipped in a paint made of Indian red or Spanish brown and small beer. As soon as the paint is dry, the cheese is rubbed once a week with a cloth. The quantity of salt employed is about three and a half pounds; and one pound of annatto is sufficient to color half a ton of cheese.”
Cheddar Cheese
is another variety in high repute for its richness, and commands a high price in the market. It is made of new milk only, and contains more fat than the egg. It is, indeed, too rich for ordinary consumption. The milk is set with rennet while yet warm, and allowed to stand still about two hours. The whey first taken off is heated and poured back upon the curd, and, after turning off the remainder, that is also heated and poured back in the same manner, where it stands about half an hour. The curd is then put into the press, and treated very much as the Cheshire up to the time of ripeness.
Dunlop Cheese
The Dunlop Cheese, the most celebrated of Scotland, had its origin in Ayrshire, from which it was sent to the Glasgow market, and from which the manufacture soon spread to Lanark, Renfrew, and other adjoining counties. It is manufactured, according to Aiton, in the following manner: When the cows on a farm are not so numerous as to yield milk sufficient to make a cheese every time they are milked, the milk is stored about six or eight inches deep in the coolers, and placed in the milk-house until as much is collected as will form a cheese of a proper size. When the cheese is to be made, the cream is skimmed from the milk in the coolers, and, without being heated, is, with the milk that is drawn from the cows at the time, passed through the sieve into the curd-vat. The cold milk from which the cream has been taken is heated so as to raise the temperature of the whole mass to near blood heat; and the whole is coägulated by the means of rennet carefully mixed with the milk. The cream is put into the curd-vat, that its oily parts may not be melted, and the skimmed milk is heated sufficient to raise the whole to near animal heat.
It may be said that the utmost care is always taken to keep the milk, in all stages of the operation, free not only from every admixture or impurity, but also from being hurt by foul air arising from acidity in any milky substance, putrid water, the stench of the barn, dunghill, or any other substance; and likewise to prevent the milk from becoming sour, which, when it happens, greatly injures the cheese. Great care is taken to prevent any of the butyraceous or oily matter in the cream from being melted in any stage of the process. To cool the milk, and to facilitate the separation or rising of the cream, a small quantity of clean cold water is generally mixed with the milk in each cooler. The coägulum is formed in from ten to fifteen minutes, and nobody would use rennet twice that required more than twenty minutes or half an hour to form a curd. Whenever the milk is completely coägulated the curd is broken, in order to let the serum or whey be separated and taken off. Some break the curd slightly at first, by making cross-scores with a knife or a thin piece of wood, at about one or two inches distant, and intersecting each other at right angles; and these are renewed still more closely after some of the whey has been discharged. Others break the whole curd more minutely at once with the hand or the skimmer.
After the curd has been broken, the whey ought to be taken off as speedily as it can be done, and with as little further breaking or handling the curd as possible. It is necessary, however, to turn the curd, cut it with a knife, or break it gently with the hand.