COATING CHEESE WITH PARAFFIN WAX.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVI, Issue 232, 4 October 1902, Page 3

COATING CHEESE WITH PARAFFIN WAX.

A work of considerable importance to the cheese industry.is being carried out in Canada at the Government cool cheese curing rooms under the supervision of Mr J. A, Ruddick, chief of the dairy division of the Department of Agriculture. All the cheese at these curing rooms are now dipped in melted wax as soon as they are received, by which process the cheese are covered with a thin, impervious coating that improves their appearance, reduces the shrinkage, and effectually prevents the growth of mould or staining of the surfaces of the cheese. Mr Ruddick has been experimenting for some time with a view of determining the right quality of wax to use, the proper temperature to have it when the cheese are dipped, and the best means of carrying out the work expeditiously, and with the least possible labor and expense. Special apparatus has been devised, and the work is in full swing at all of the four cool curing rooms established by the Government this season. This practice has been tried, before, but so far as is known it has not been successfully applied to Canadian Cheddar cheese, of the regular size when cured at the temperatnre of an ordinary cheese curing room. The heating of the cheese and consequent swelling and exudation of fat causes the wax to peel off. It is hardly expected, therefore, that the cheese factory with an ordinary curing room can adopt this method of treating their cheese, although experiments are now being conducted to determine this point. But Mr Ruddick expects that it will prove one of the greatest of the advantages to be derived from the cool curing of cheese, ■