Part 5

As a general thing, less acid is deemed necessary for the October make than was applied to the September product. I believe that in making this important change the majority of manufacturers are too abrupt in method and reduce the standard of ripeness prematurely in point of time. A certain amount of acid is necessary to impart flavor and insure good keeping qualities, hence more of it is required in hot weather than in cold, as a defense against high temperature. Many think that as soon as the hot days are passed the need of an advanced curd maturity is passed also, and make almost sweet cheese. If there is any thing that is fraught with dire consequences in cheese making, it is extremes practiced in the _modus operandi_. Avoid anything so derogatory and let conservatism characterize your movements. Despite seasons and weather, and climate, we have got to apply just so much acid to cheese to make it palatable and mellow, and if the product is liable to encounter crucial weather enough more sourness to retain the flavor established is imperative. But what weakens fall goods is that in decreasing the acid scale in view of cold weather ahead the retrograde is pushed beyond its own needs and infringes on the quality of the cheese. In their zeal to have the standard just right, I have known old makers to produce a lot of weak October cheese before they realized where the trouble was. Better have a little fullness of acid on fall stock than not enough. “Doctor, why is it that you always buy a late fall cheese for winter family use?” was asked one of the medical fraternity by a factory employee as he delivered a forty pounder at his door. “We have in my estimation far better goods on the shelves made in August and September, and the price is the same.” “Well, you see, young man,” said the Doctor, pouring some quinine into a vial, “I have a notion that late fall cheese is healthier; the milk is no richer, perhaps, than in September but the air is cool and pure, and, of course, you know what a debilitating effect heat waves and miasmatic atmospheric currents have on milk. Well, the less poison there is in the air, the less there will be in the milk and subsequently in the cheese, consequently my choice.” I believe the man of pills argued in the right direction there, but then there is happily a way of expunging from the curd infections absorbed by the milk from the atmosphere, namely, airing.

The most diabolical enemy of October cheese is the skimmer. In factories where that is unused there is a clear field for developing fine stock, but there is no concealing the fact that all attempts to smooth over the impoverishing effects of its use by the most skilled treatment are futile and unavailing. If all of the good endeavor to make mellow, rich cheese out of substance that is but dross was expended in divorcing the illegitimate union of creamery and cheese factory, incalculable benefit would accrue to dairy interests.

This month avoid cold draughts through the make-room during the scalding process, as a vat presents a large surface for a current of air to exert a chilling effect upon. Be sure and cook the curd enough. There is a vast amount of fall made cheese that comes to grief through insufficient scalding. If you do not bake a loaf of bread thoroughly, you have a doughy and unpalatable article of food, and if curd is not cooked until it has passed the raw state, it will retain a certain quantity of whey and damage the product on the shelves. This is the cause of strong-flavored, flabby-textured cheese. A gentleman of long experience in the trade has said: “The truth is, as it is difficult to cure cheese in cold weather, it ought to be cooked more than will answer in hot weather, and sour less, as the tendency is to acidulation in a cool atmosphere, in consequence of the moisture not drying out soon enough.” To this we can append the suggestion of never trying to cure a cheese in a cool atmosphere, for the result will be a failure. A cheese cannot help but grow old in a cold room but it will never cure.

A SIGNIFICANT REPORT.

A recent issue of the Utica _Herald_ contains the following:

A New York gentleman, who has recently returned from Liverpool, writes to a friend in this city and reports the situation healthy on the other side, but says New York State cheese are done for as far as fine cheese goes. It is the same old trouble we have mentioned time and again, too much cheese to the pound of milk—no body. Canada, and even New Zealand, are taking the trade of fine cheese from the States. Our factory men will wake up to the fact some day and find their goods are only second class. In fact, it is about so now. New York State cheese sell under Canada all the way from ½ @ 1c. a pound. We have preached this a long while but it is beginning to be realized now. This accounts for the large shipments from Canada during the last two months, and the small ones from here.

Cheese industry is not yet of sufficient magnitude to exert any marked influence on the European markets, but as the dairy industry is constantly expanding here, and the State’s product must stand on its own merits, it behooves manufacturers to avoid the pit that their brothers of the Empire State have inadvertently stumbled into. We consume a large amount of cheese here at home, and why are not our stomachs as worthy to be catered to as are the digestive receptacles of our English cousins across the pond? Yet there is no alarm in cheese circles as to deteriorated quality until British buyers find something that suits them better and for which they are willing to pay more. Truly cheese-eating New Yorkers are a very patient people. We have before us the file of a leading American cheese report of 1868—twenty years ago. It says: “We are behind the Canadians as regards firmness, but ahead of them in point of flavor. The same relation exists between American and Swedish cheese; also, between American and English cheese, and other European makes, with the exception of a few of the best English brands, which are equal if not superior to our finest grades, as regards flavor, and superior in fineness and firmness of texture.” This was America’s prestige a score of years ago. Why has it not been sustained? The cause is clear to the most obdurate. Producers supposed their cheese supreme in the English markets and have been abusing an established trade reputation with impunity. Their folly is now apparent, and the question naturally arises, Will they play the role of the prodigal son and return to a path of trade rectitude? That implies that the banns that unite the creamery and the cheese factory be irrevocably severed—send the skimmer higher than Gilroy’s kite, as it were. The American people can appreciate good cheese just as well as the English. We want good butter, too, but not at the cost of the cheese quality. That is not necessary, and a few years ago we did not deem it so, either. Why should there be a tendency in that direction now? We are now better equipped in every department to send out better cheese than we did in 1868, yet notice the difference in the two reports quoted. We are better equipped, because we have more scientific appliances for handling milk. Our milk is better, because the pastures are improved, and a finer grade of stock feeds upon them. Makers of to-day who rely on the accumulated cheese wisdom handed down through two decades of experience should be rich enough in knowledge to at least not retrograde from the standard of 1868. Let us for one moment lay reform in the tariff, and reform in the civil service on the table and talk, think and act about reform in cheese. Michigan always takes a front seat when reformation of any kind is agitated. We are satisfied she will not take a back seat now. There has probably not been such a tendency in this State as in other localities to rob milk at both ends and on the sides before it is suffered to coagulate in cheese, but let us smother what infection there is before it becomes an established blight on the Wolverine product. We are satisfied that our dairymen are alive to their interests here, and will not drift away from safe anchorage. A shipping cheese requires more body, or, in other words, more acid and firmness than a cheese designed for home consumption. This is partly due to the fact that such a quality is demanded by European consumers and partly because an ocean voyage necessitates it. It takes more milk to make such cheese, and less milk to produce the softer and more perishable home trade goods. In thrusting the cheaper article on the foreign market, New Yorkers have staked a hazardous venture and lost. Nothing is said about the skimmer, but it gets in its insidious work all the same—not under full cream brands, probably. We do not insinuate that, but the markets are crowded with night and flat skims, occupying space that should be filled with richer goods. Skims are sent over to England when they really want full cream. Canada and New Zealand step in with a fine quality of the latter brand, and they take it even in preference to the States’ best offering. We hold skimmed cheese greatly responsible for the trade depression under which the American article is now laboring. It is high time that the dry, hard stuff was known no more in all the earth.

PREPARED RENNET AND COLOR.

The value to the cheese trade of scientifically prepared rennet and annotto color cannot be over estimated. Rennet extract, and one quality annottoine, are not in general use, but they should be. With the home prepared infusion of both articles, we have a thousand diverse shades of quality and degrees of strength, and, worst of all, they are often applied to the milk, hit or miss. The result is unevenness in cheese quality and color, where there should be perfect uniformity. We advise all makers to renounce as fast as practicable the old, often unsatisfactory method of soaking rennet skins, and steeping annotto seed, and adopt reliably prepared extracts of these essential cheese ingredients.

CHEESE THAT HUFF.

A good, properly manufactured cheese will never huff up on the surface, or swell the bandage to the point of protuberance. Cheese often huff slightly when curing, and afterward flatten into a smooth, firm surface, but they are never No. 1 stock. The writer can remember fifteen years back when makers did not understand working gaseous curds as they do now. Sales and shipments were far between then, and cheese accumulated in great numbers in factories. It was no uncommon thing in the years ’73 and ’74, in passing through a curing room containing 500 or 600 cheese, to find a large percentage of the umber covered with immense blisters, that held in retention offensive smelling gases. Every day the maker would lance these unhealthy swellings with a wire or goose quill, only to have them shortly after bulge out in another place. Besides these partially affected cheese, there were often days’ makes of those that would huff all over, swell out like huge puff balls till a slight jar would have rolled them from the shelves. These were the product of floating curds with the gas all left in. A decade and a half ago farmers did not take the same care of their milk that they do now. They were not versed in dairy literature to any extent, and did not see the importance of speedily expelling animal heat from milk or of always furnishing their cows with wholesome drinking water. Hence, tainted milk was more often the rule than the exception. With the present bettered quality of milk and the improved skill of makers in handling it, inflative cheese ought to now be foreign to the curing room. Bad taints are at present seldom met with, but slight ones creep in unawares, unless the maker is vigilant, and then it is his business to eradicate the ill-savor. Sour until acid has completely overcome the gas, grind twice, and give the curd a prolonged airing by frequent stirring. Try the prolonged stirring on common curds that are hot—too hot to go immediately to press—and notice how it will enhance the flavor of the cheese.

FACTORY UTENSILS.

As a maker, I have had opportunities of seeing milk in all stages and in all conditions, and I have found it an invariable rule that the milk furnished by farmers who read and studied the dairy question in all of its phases; who were conversant with dairy literature and adopted the most improved methods extant for producing an abundant, pure and rich flow of milk, were enough affected by the ideas absorbed from library and press to be unconsciously moulded by their influence. On the other hand, farmers who never read; who avoided all progressive methods as “new-fangled notions” and clung to the primitive ways of their ancestors, forgetful that those ancestors adopted nothing new because there was no new thing to adopt, furnished milk sometimes good, often poor, and never profitable to themselves. A man who doesn’t have an opinion on the relative value of milch breeds, who doesn’t know how to feed scientifically and who has narrow conceptions of systematic dairying, generally is, in this competitive epoch, an agricultural cipher.

The other day the writer inspected two cheese factories, separated by only a few miles, each being located on admirable sites and accessible to water. Previous to my visit I had been told that the maker in B——’s factory had, during the past season, produced poor, uneven stock, which was a surprise to his friends, as his trade reputation was excellent. On the other hand, I knew that the cheese from W——’s factory, although manufactured by a man of less experience than his rival, had sold at prices above the former’s and footed up a lower ratio. As soon as I had seen the interior of each building the sequel was made plain to me, and subsequent investigation proved it. The first named factory was a mere shell, furnished with utensils both primitive and worn out; the second was a tight, plastered structure and equipped with all of the paraphernalia essential to a modern cheese building. The competition was like running a pony express against a United States mail train.

A cheese factory needs good, improved utensils, just the same as a farm requires machinery of the latest patterns. It should have a boiler, because steam heating is cheaper, more under control and, consequently, safer for scalding than where fire under heating is employed. It should be furnished with a curd mill, because with one the maker has the acid almost completely under control. Without a mill, the whey must be retained until nearly enough acid has developed to meet the requisite gauge. Then it must be hastily drawn and hastily salted, with the whey not all out of it; too often the acid is in advance of the maker’s expectations. Cheese made in this way from day to day cannot help but be uneven in flavor, in salt and in acid. “Salting in the whey,” as it is called, without a mill is wasteful, too. As the whey flows off, the constant tendency of the curd is to pack, and hand manipulation to prevent this will start white whey, the life blood of the cheese, in wasteful quantities. With a mill to use, all this is changed. The whey can be drawn when but very little acid has appeared, and the curd, packed and drained, waits for the sourness to develop there. It matures more slowly than when submerged in whey, and when the right point is reached the iron teeth of the mill attack it and tear it up and salt it when in a _dry state_, which is a great advantage. The make-room should be supplied with a gang press and patent hoops, because one screw will compress a dozen cheese and solidify them more firmly than old fashioned single screws. A good cheese can be spoiled after it is in the hoop by insufficient pressing.

I consider the latest milk handling devices almost as essential in a modern factory or creamery as the practical knowledge of the maker. Not merely for labor saving purposes should manufactories be so supplied, but because the demands of present trade require dairy products of a complexion difficult to attain without. It is a “penny wise and pound foolish” policy to scantily furnish a butter or cheese plant when thereby the loss on one under price sale would have more than covered the deficiency in tools.

TO CHEESE MAKERS.

The main point why Canadian cheese is lately quoted higher than American is that they are ahead of us =on uniformity=. To obtain this a uniform Rennet and a uniform Color are most essential. No matter how careful the maker is, he can never get it as uniform as our

Chr. Hansen’s Rennet Extract

——AND——

CHEESE COLOR.

Taking into account the poor Rennets in the market, the saving by making your own Extract is very small; and as to Cheese Color, even if you did save 60 cents a gallon it would only cost you =5 cents more to color 1000 pounds of cheese=, a mere nothing if ours is at all more uniform and of a more natural shade, =bright, clean, creamy=, and not dull reddish.

Consider this, and give our Extract and Color a fair trial.

If you prefer Rennet in dry shape try our Rennet Tablets, which are quite as cheap and a great deal handier to use than powder.

Send for Price List to

CHR. HANSEN’S LABORATORY, (Little Falls, N. Y.,) or 17 Dearborn Street, CHICAGO, ILL.

J. D. FREDERIKSEN, ESQ., BROCKVILLE, Ont., July 17, 1886.

CHR. HANSEN’S LABORATORY, LITTLE FALLS, N. Y.:

_Dear Sir_—Your Rennet and Color are positively the finest that have ever been introduced into this section. I know this personally. Our cheese are finer this year than ever before in consequence of using those goods.

Yours respectfully, D. DERBYSHIRE, Pres’t E. O. D. A.

CREAMERY, CHEESE FACTORY AND DAIRY

MACHINERY AND SUPPLIES.

D. H. ROE & CO.,

CHICAGO, ILL.,

CARRY A FULL LINE OF ALL KINDS OF SUPPLIES, SUCH AS

Butter Cloth, Cheese Cloth, Cloth Circles,

RENNETS,

RENNET EXTRACT, RENNET TABLETS, CHEESE COLOR, BUTTER COLOR, CHEESE GREASE, SALT, BUTTER TUBS, CHEESE BOXES, CHEESE BOX STOCK, &c., &c.

ALSO A FULL LINE OF

Cream Vats, Milk Vats, Self Heating Vats, Churns, Steam Boilers, Steam Engines, Separators, Cheese Presses, Butter Printers, Etc., Etc., Etc.

Send for Price List, and mention the “Hand-Book.”

Acknowledged to be the only proper CHEESE DRESSING on the market.

_Manufactured only by_ =B. J. JOHNSON & CO., MILWAUKEE, WIS.=

THE MICHIGAN DAIRYMAN.

_Official Organ of the Michigan Dairyman’s Association._

50 CENTS PER YEAR IN ADVANCE.

_Sample Copies sent Free._

_Address the Publishers_, E. A. STOWE & BRO., Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Transcriber’s Notes

pg 12 Changed: the whole mass is preceptibly to: the whole mass is perceptibly

pg 15 Changed: been thoroughly agitated vithout bruising to: been thoroughly agitated without bruising

pg 16 Changed: slightly (perpaps in five minutes to: slightly (perhaps in five minutes

pg 17 Changed: sure test of which I are aware to: sure test of which I am aware

pg 19 Changed: A maker who can preceive to: A maker who can perceive

pg 20 Changed: expel heat as to expugn the gaseous odors to: expel heat as to expunge the gaseous odors

pg 21 Changed: tht last thing stirring up the surface to: that last thing stirring up the surface

pg 33 Changed: the rennet or gastic juice it contains to: the rennet or gastric juice it contains

pg 34 Changed: been secreted in their mammilary glands to: been secreted in their mammillary glands

pg 35 Changed: seat on the bench of humilation to: seat on the bench of humiliation

pg 36 Changed: inexorably exacts from the physicial to: inexorably exacts from the physical

pg 37 Changed: As all patirons are served to: As all patrons are served

pg 39 Changed: lengthway to lengthways (two times)

pg 45 Changed: afraid af financially losing to: afraid of financially losing

pg 52 Changed: a way of expugning from the curd to: a way of expunging from the curd

pg 52 Changed: benefit would accrue to dairy interetes to: benefit would accrue to dairy interests

pg 55 Changed: scientific appliances for handling miik to: scientific appliances for handling milk

pg 55 Changed: before it becomes an establisted to: before it becomes an established

pg 58 Changed: who does’t know how to feed scientifically to: who doesn’t know how to feed scientifically