The Book of Cheese

by Charles Thom; W. W. Fisk

Treatment of milk before adding rennet.—The temperature of the milk should be brought up to a point not below 88° F. nor much above 90° F. When the desired temperature has been reached and has become constant, the coloring matter is added. One ounce of cheese color for about 1200 pounds of milk may be used. The coloring matter should be thoroughly incorporated by stirring before the rennet is added.

Addition of rennet to milk.—The rennet should not be added until the milk has reached the desired temperature (88 to 90° F.) and this temperature has become constant. The milk should be completely coagulated, ready for cutting, in fifteen or twenty minutes. The same precautions should be used in adding rennet as those previously mentioned in connection with the manufacture of Edam cheese.

Cutting the curd.—The curd should be cut when it is of about the hardness generally observed for cutting in the Cheddar process. The cutting is done as in the Cheddar process except that the curd is cut a little finer in the Gouda cheese. Curd should be about the size of peas or wheat kernels when ready for press and as uniform in size as possible.

Treatment of curd after cutting.—After the cutting is completed, heating and stirring is begun at once. The heating and constant stirring is continued until the curd reaches a temperature of 104° F., which should require from thirty to forty minutes. When the curd becomes rubber-like in feeling, the whey should be run off. The whey should be entirely sweet when it is removed.

Pressing and dressing Gouda.—After the whey is off, the curd is put in molds at once without salting ([Fig. 28]). Pains should be taken in this process to keep the temperature of the curd as near 100° F. as possible. Each cheese is placed under continuous pressure amounting to ten or twenty times its own weight and kept for about half an hour. The first bandage is put on in very much the same manner as in Edam cheese making. The cheese is then put in press again for about one hour.

Fig. 28.—Gouda cheese mold. The first bandage is then taken off and a second one like the first put on with great care, taking pains to make the bandage smooth, capping the ends as before. The cheese is then put in press again and left twelve hours or more.

Salting and curing.—When Gouda cheese is taken from the press, the bandage is removed and it is placed for twenty-four hours in a curing-room like that used for Edam cheese, as previously described. Each cheese is then rubbed all over with dry salt until the salt begins to dissolve, and this same treatment is continued twice a day for ten days. At the end of that time, each cheese is carefully and thoroughly washed in warm water and dried with a clean linen towel. The cheeses are then placed on the shelves of the curing-room, turned once a day and rubbed. The temperature and moisture are controlled as described in the curing process of Edam cheese. If the outer surfaces of the cheese become slimy at any time, they are carefully washed in warm water and dried with clean towels. Under these conditions, cheese ripens in two or three months.

190. Equipment for Gouda cheese.—The molds, press and curing-room are the only equipment needed in the making of Gouda cheese that differ from that employed in making Cheddar cheese. The mold used for Gouda cheese consists of two portions, which are shown separately in Fig. 28. These molds are made of heavy pressed tin. The inside diameter at the middle is about 10 inches, that of the ends about 6½ inches. The height of the mold is about 5½ inches, and this represents the thickness of the cheese, but by pushing the upper down into the lower portion, the thickness can be decreased as desired.

191. Composition and yield of Gouda.—In work with milk averaging 4.2 per cent of fat there were lost in the whey from 0.29 to 0.43 per cent with an average of 0.35 per cent of fat. The loss of fat appears to be not much greater than the average loss met with in cheese factories in making Cheddar cheese. From 100 pounds of milk, there were made from 11.60 to 13.35 pounds of green cheese, with an average of 12.50 pounds. The percentage of water in the experimental cheese varied from 41.25 to 45.43 per cent and averaged 43.50 per cent.