1307. The Dairy.—Dairymen will find a great advantage in cheese making, by putting their milk, which is to stand over night, into small air-tight vessels. They will also find it an advantage, when it thunders, to suspend the vessels by a cord or chain, as the jarring of the shocks, which sour the milk, will, in a great measure, be prevented. We may prevent the commencement of sourness, which takes place in milk standing in large quantities, by a wooden follower being fitted to the vat, and pressed on the milk. If any one doubt the utility of this, let him try the experiment for himself. Cover the bottom of your cheese-vat to the depth of half an inch with milk, and let it stand through the night, and then try to make a breakfast of it in the morning. You could relish tallow as well, or a piece of bread and butter that had lain in the sun an hour. Neither milk, butter, nor cheese will do to stand in the light of the sun, though it be reflected, as it will produce rancidity.
1308. Butter.—Keep your pails, churn, and pans sweet. In winter warm the pans and churns with hot water, in summer cool them with cold. Keep your milk in summer where it is cool and airy, in winter where it is warm. In warm weather skim your milk as soon as it is thick; in colder weather skim as soon as there is a good thick cream, and be careful not to let it remain too long, as it will acquire a bad taste. Churn as often as you have cream enough, never less than once a week. If the cream is of the right temperature when commenced, it will not froth, and if it does, put in a little salt. Use no salt but the best ground salt; work out all the butter-milk with a ladle in summer, in winter use clean hands. If you wish to keep it some time, put it down in a jar or firkin, or pickle in layers, as clean and free from butter-milk as it is possible, leaving a space for pickle over it, in the following proportions. Half a pail of water, one quart of fine salt, two ounces of loaf-sugar, one ounce of saltpetre, well boiled and skimmed. When cold, cover with this, and it will keep good and sweet, the year round.
1309. Cream.—The quantity of cream on milk may be greatly increased by the following process: Have two pans ready in boiling hot water, and when the new milk is brought in, put it into one of these hot pans and cover it with the other. The quality as well as the thickness of the cream is improved.
1310. Method of curing bad Tub Butter.—A quantity of tub butter was brought to market in the West Indies, which, on opening, was found to be very bad, and almost stinking. A native of Pennsylvania undertook to cure it, which he did, in the following manner:—
He started the tubs of butter in a large quantity of hot water, which soon melted the butter; he then skimmed it off as clean as possible, and worked it over again in a churn, and with the addition of salt and fine sugar, the butter was sweet and good.