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

by T. D. Curtis

CHAPTER XXI. GREASING CHEESE.

When a cheese is first removed from the hoops, care should be taken that its face be not allowed to dry and crack before it is greased with hot whey-butter. Nothing has been found so good as whey-butter for the purpose of greasing cheese, and it should be applied hot, and as soon after the cheese is set on the range as possible. If it dries at all, we think it injurious to the formation of a smooth, glassy face; and if it dries much, the face is sure to check and present an unsatisfactory appearance, besides furnishing convenient places for the cheese-fly to deposit its eggs.

A very convenient thing for applying the hot butter is a paint-brush. It is much handier and better every way than a swab. But care must be taken, or the bristles of the brush will get scorched. This can be avoided by removing the brush from the dish when through using it, and not putting it in the grease again until you are ready to grease the faces of your cheeses.

A pressed iron dish with a handle riveted on, is handy for melting the grease. There is no danger of melting out the bottom, or melting off the handle, and you are less liable to burn yourself or spill your grease than you are if you melt the whey butter in an old basin, which very soon gets burnt and leaky.

Little conveniences, like the iron dish and brush we have mentioned, help a great deal, in the course of a season, about cheese-making; and a cheese-maker had better furnish them at his own expense, if his employers are too stingy to do it, than not to have them. There are many such little things that greatly assist in doing work easily and in keeping neat and tidy. One can do without them, on the principle that a farmer can hoe his corn without a cultivator, but it does not pay.

If a cheese cannot be greased as soon as taken out, spread a cloth or put a turner over it, or both. This will keep the moisture from escaping and the air from immediate contact with the face of the cheese.

As whey-butter is the best and nearly the only material used for greasing the faces of cheeses, it will not be amiss and may be of use to inexperienced cheese-makers, to say a few words on the mode of trying out the whey-butter. Prepare a skimmer with a long handle, which may be cheaply made by punching the bottom of an old tin-pan full of holes and fastening a wooden handle to it with bits of wire. A shrub five or six feet long and of suitable size, with a short crook at the larger end, is convenient. It can be split at the crooked end, slipped on the edge of the pan and wired there without much trouble.

Hang a large kettle—a cauldron is best—in a convenient place, and fill it about two-thirds fall of the grease and scum which you skim off from the vat. It is yeasty stuff, and requires a good deal of room, at first, to swell in when the heat is started. Keep up a moderate fire, so as to boil it gently without scorching, and continue the boiling until the cheesy portion is sufficiently cooked to sink to the bottom. Then allow the batch to rest and cool down. Dip off the butter, while still warm and oily, and carefully strain it into a clean tub. When cooled sufficiently to begin to thicken somewhat, a little salt sprinkled on the surface and thoroughly stirred in, as the farmers' wives sometimes salt their lard, will help prevent it from getting rancid and stinking. Set it in a cool place, and keep it covered tightly. Near the close of the fall's operations, a nice tub of whey butter should be thus prepared and set by for use the next spring—for, in the cold spring weather, when cheese-making first commences, very little cream will rise on the whey-vat, and it will take some time before a batch can be procured.

In applying the whey-butter to the face of the cheese, no more should be used than the surface of the cheese will absorb and leave it moist and shiny. If enough is put on so that it will cool in streaks and stick to whatever it touches, it should be wiped off, or it will daub the turner or bench, and not only make unnecessary work in cleaning, but prevent a hard, smooth rind from forming. Many give themselves a good deal of annoyance by putting on too much grease.

The next morning after the cheese has been set on the range, and had its upper face greased with hot whey-butter, it should be turned over, when a similar application of hot butter should be made to the other face. If the cheese is well made and of good milk, and properly greased, as we have indicated, more greasing will seldom be needed. A little care will determine when more is needed, if at all. If the face begins to look dry and feel harsh, in spite of thorough rubbing with the hands, call the grease-brush into requisition again. In hot, dry weather—especially if the air is allowed to strike the face of the cheese—a timely application of more whey-butter may keep the face from cracking and save considerable trouble.