SOME FACTS IN CHEESE-MAKING.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1858, 6 February 1880, Page 3

SOME FACTS IN CHEESE-MAKING.

A Danish dairyman, named B. Storch, as the results of investigations in the manufacture of cheese, as recently reported in a Danish journal, showing how by slight variations in the mode of preparing and handling the curd, the composition of the product may be very materially - changed. One of the special objects to be determined was an explanation of the larger yield of cheese obtained in practice, from milk which had stood but twelve hours, for cream to rise, than from milk twenty-four or thirtysix hours old, and which did not seem to be due alone to a larger proportion of fat in the former case, but apparently also to a more complete coagulation and separation of the caseine. Many of these experiments were conducted on a large scale at a chees° factory, and the cheese was made in the usual manner. In these experiments it was found that, the smaller yield of cheese from older milk was found to be due to a smaller proportion of water in the cheese, as well as a somewhat less complete coagulation ; 100 pounds of milk that had been skimmed after twelve hours gave 8 9 pounds of cheese against 8} pounds from milk thirty-six hours old. As to the completeness of the conversion of the fat or caseine of the milk into butter and cheese it was found that in the two products taken together, 90 per cent of the fat was recovered, the missing 10 per cent being about equally distributed between the buttermilk and the whey ; but only 63 per cent of the caseine was recovered, the missing 37 per cent coming out mostly in the whey. If the buttermilk was added to the skim milk before coagulation, the recovery of the fat of the whole milk was increased by 3.5 per cent and of the caseine by 10 per cent; hence in this case 73 per cent of the caseine was recovered, or almost as much as in the manufacture of cheese from fresh milk which yielded 75 per cent of the caseine.

If, instead of cutting up the curd in the usual manner, it was allowed to stand entirely undisturbed till of such consistency that it could be taken up by a ladle, transferred to a sieve, and allowed to drain, as is practiced in the manufacture of some of the famous soft French cheese, the cheese was found to be almost twice as rich in fat as under the ordinary mode of treatment; notwithstanding it was very much richer, 22 per cent in water of the whey was not pressed out. Hence cutting up the curd, while it facilitates the separation of the whey, also causes considerable loss of fat. A higher temperature of the milk when coagulated was found to produce a cheese with a smaller proportion of water ; for a difference of from 12 to 13 degrees, there was a difference of from 4 to 5 per cent in the proportion of water; the variation was found to hold good in somewhat the same proportion for smaller differences of temperature, even so little as 1 degree. In relation to the time for cutting the curd it was found that the earlier cutting yields a cheeaa poorer in water and richer in fat; comparing cheese from curd cut up as soon as coagulation began with that cut ton minutes later, the former was found to contain 1.15 per cent more of fat and 5.2 per cent loss of water than the latter. By suitable management of the temperature and mode of handling the curd, cheese with quite wide differences in the proportion of water may be manufactured at pleasure. As to the loss of weight which the cheese undergoes while ripening it was found to be duo principally to loss of water only, and that the alteration of the caseine accompanied with the production and escape of ammonia, which is known to go on daring ripening, takes place only at the surface; nothing but water escapes from the inner portion of the cheese.