To give it a good appearance for market, the cheese is molded in little tin molds very much like a quarter-pound baking powder can with open ends. The cylindrical roll of cheese is wrapped in parchment paper and tinfoil and is immediately ready for consumption. In an ice box it will keep for a week or so. Neufchatel cheese may be made from whole milk or partly-skimmed milk. The yield is from 10 to 20 lbs. out of 100 lbs. of milk.
Cream Cheese is usually made in the same way. A mixture of cream and milk containing about 10% butter-fat is used, though sometimes the cream is not added until the time of salting. The mold is square, 2½” × 1½” × 2” deep. These soft kinds of cheese are often mixed with chopped peppers, olives or nuts and make excellent sandwiches.
Cured Soft Cheese.—For Cream or Neufchatel cheese, made for curing, the curd is salted more than for fresh cheese, or the molded cheese is rolled in salt. For a week or two it is placed in a curing room on straw mats or the like where it ferments slightly before being wrapped and packed for shipment.
French Soft Cheese.—The many forms of French soft cheese as represented by the Brie, the Camembert, etc., are subjected to special fermentations which give to each its peculiar flavor. Attempts have been made to use pure cultures of the bacteria active in such fermentations and so reduce the art of cheesemaking to a more scientific process. But it has been found that any desired kind of cheese cannot be made simply by adding a culture of this or that bacterium to pasteurized milk. Of vastly greater importance for the development of the proper bacteria and flavor is the handling of the milk and the curd by the experienced cheesemaker. Inoculation with a pure culture alone does not make the special cheese wanted.
CHEESE MADE WITHOUT RENNET
Mono-service jar
Cottage Cheese.—Of the sour milk types the common Cottage Cheese is the best known. It is made from skim milk which in a warm room will curdle when sour, whether rennet and a starter are used or not. The thick sour milk is heated to anywhere between 100° and 120° and dipped into bags of cheese-cloth hung up for draining. The next day light pressure is applied for 12 to 24 hours, when the curd is kneaded, slightly salted, formed into balls and wrapped in parchment paper or packed into jars. For this purpose paraffined paper jars are very practical.
The more the curd is heated in the whey the drier will be the cheese. Often it is improved by allowing the curd to become rather dry and then working new milk or a little cream into it, according to the use to which it is to be put—whether it is for bakers’ stock or for the table.
Simple directions for making Cottage cheese are given in Farmers’ Bulletin 850 and A. I. 17, issued by the United States Department of Agriculture from which we reprint the following and copy the accompanying illustrations: