CHEESE FOR HOME USE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1201, 8 March 1895, Page 8

CHEESE FOR HOME USE.

A lot of farmers do nob know, says “Thistledown” in the Australasian , how to make a cheap and good cheese for home use. What I would recommend for this purpose is a cheese made from two meals of milk—one meal (that milked the previous evening) being set for cream and skimmed in the morning; the other poured into the cheese-tub in the state it'leaves the cow. This makes a very serviceable cheese. The night’s milk having been skimmed, a portion of it is heated by putting it in a tin vessel, and plunging the latter into hot water. It is then put into the cheese-tub with the morning’s milk, the object of the heating being to raise the temperature of the whole to about 80 degrees. The rennet is then added, according to directions given on the bottle. When the milk has stood forty minutes, or an hour, it should resemble a thick jelly, and breaking should then commence. This is done by passing a framework of wires, called a curd-breaker, through the curd very carefully, so as to reduce the mass into particles about the size of a large pea. Before this work is completed some of the whey should be heated and poured back again, the curd being permitted to settle to allow of the whey being dipped out. The curd is then gently stirred again, some more whey being removed and a portion being returned so as to raise the temperature tO. 90deg. The stirring provcsss: i& Continued for another 20 minutes, when some boiling whey is stirred into the tub, and the temperature raised to 95deg. The curd is then allowed to settle, and the whey is drawn off 20 minutes later. The curd is then cut into small squares and allowed to drain for a few minutes, when it is stacked in the centre of the tub and covered with a thick cloth so as to retain the warmth. An hour later it is again cut into squares and spread over the bottom of the tub to cool, and shortly 7 ,afterwards it is ground or rubbed down fine with the hand, and salted at the rate of lib of salt to 40lb of curd. The chesee is then vatted, and should be taken out and revatted three times before it is taken to the cheeseroom. When they finally leave the press they should be covered with thick calico, so as to keep the cheese-fly off, * and may bo placed a bandage to keep the cheese in shape. The ' cheese should be turned daily at first, and afterwards two or three times'a I week. In ten or twelve weeks it will | be ready for use.