Hints on cheese-making, for the dairyman, the factoryman, and the manufacturer

by T. D. Curtis

CHAPTER X. COLOR.

One would hardly think of associating cheese-making with the fine arts; yet, in what other light can we view the subject of color? It adds nothing to the quality of the cheese, but rather detracts from it. It is expensive and troublesome, and grows more so every year, as the demand for annotto runs up the price and leads to adulteration. But as long as we make cheese for a foreign market, we must adapt our goods to the tastes of that market, whether they be physical or mental. Our home market would, perhaps, not suffer from the omission of color; but the English market demands, to a large extent, highly-colored cheese. The Liverpool market will take a small quantity of pale cheese, but it does not equal more than one-fifth of the demand of the English market. A few factories, which sell exclusively to buyers who supply the Liverpool demand for pale cheese, may safely omit the color; but all which depend on the general market cannot safely do so. The London market specially demands a high color, and it is no less exacting now than it has been heretofore. The cry of buyers generally is, "Keep up the color!" The exceptions to this are few, and are confined to those who have special orders for pale cheese to supply the demand above indicated.

The English consumer acquired his taste for golden-hued cheese before the American make found any considerable market abroad—indeed, before we had much cheese to sell. The first object in coloring seems to have been to give a rich butter color. In this way, cheese was made to appear rich whether it really was so or not. But the shade has been considerably intensified and the English eye is best pleased with the color produced by the use of prime annotto, with which it has become familiar. This may be a prejudice, but it is a comparatively harmless one; and since our customer is willing to pay for it, there seems to be no good reason why it should not be gratified. It is for our interest to please the eye as well as the appetite of so large a buyer of our products as England. She wants about four-fifths of her cheese highly but nicely colored.

The complaint among buyers generally is, that color is too low. In reply to suggestions about the fact, makers often say that they never used more coloring, but it does not produce the desired effect. They have paid a high price for what was supposed to be prime annotto, but it proves to be extensively adulterated, and therefore weak. This is not the complaint of all, but of many. Some have adopted the use of prepared annotto, and find it cheaper and more satisfactory. When prime annotto could readily be had, it was cheaper to buy the basket and prepare it themselves. But now, one poor basket, during a season, imposes a loss greater than the difference in price between the prepared and the unprepared.

There is another evil about the use of poor annotto. It is not only expensive and does not give the desired color, but what color it does give fades out with age, and leaves the cheese with a cloudy, mottled appearance, which is very offensive to the eye of our best customers. Again, where poor annotto is bought in the basket and prepared at the factory, it contains a large amount of sediment, and this sediment, often containing deleterious substances, too frequently gets into the cheese. The liquid is not properly settled and racked off. This affords another argument in favor of buying prepared annotto, which, if properly put up, is free from sediment.

Those who prefer to buy the basket annotto and prepare it themselves, should buy only on the warrant of the dealer that it is what it is recommended to be. The dealer should test a sample of his annotto, before offering it for sale, and know precisely what he is selling. Buyers by thus purchasing only of well-known dealers, who sell upon honor, will discourage rascality. This is the only method we see for keeping the spurious article out of market, and securing satisfactory results in coloring.

We would suggest to those who prepare their own annotto, that they use concentrated ley or potash. By doing so, they will secure just as good a shade as they can by using ley from wood-ashes, and not only save the trouble of bothering with a leach, but secure uniform strength. Two leaches will seldom turn out ley of the same strength. Sometimes it will be strong and satisfactory. But if you happen to get a lot of soft wood ashes in your leach, the ley will be weak, imperfectly dissolve the annotto, and materially injure the liquid.

In fact, it is difficult to get your coloring twice alike by the use of a common leach. But with concentrated ley or potash, the same quantities or proportions of materials, mixed in the same way, will produce the same result. You can therefore keep your color even, and will not be called upon to experiment and change your hand every time you prepare a new batch of annotto. The difference in expense will be trifling, and rather in favor of the use of potash, if time and trouble are counted of any value.

The prepared annotto ought to be kept in a stone jar, as the ley operates injuriously upon wood, and is liable to leave a tub in a leaky condition as the liquid is used out and the tub dries. Where annotto is purchased already prepared, of course it comes in vessels suitable to keep it in; but when prepared at the factory, a receptacle has to be provided, and nothing is better than stone or earthen-ware. In hot weather, the liquid is liable to smell badly from the action of the heat on it. A little salt stirred in will be found useful as a preventive against this.

It is not necessary to discuss at length the question of the effect of coloring on the quality of the cheese. The introduction of a strong alkaline preparation cannot be without some effect; and when that happens to be adulterated with some vile substance, the effect cannot be otherwise than injurious. The annotto itself is generally conceded to be harmless; and the ley is, at most, but a neutralizer of the lactic acid, but the quantity is not sufficient, perhaps, to produce any perceptible result. At all events, color is demanded; annotto, prepared with ley or potash, is the accepted material; so we have only to color with annotto to suit the taste of our customer.