Page:The story of milk.djvu/152

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on the follower. The cheese is turned a few times and the next day it is taken out of the mold and placed on the salting table. The salting is done by rubbing the cheese on all sides with salt which penetrates the curd and draws out moisture. This is repeated for 3 days and the cheese is then left to cure, being washed and wiped off every week to prevent molding.

Brick cheese is shipped one or two months old. It is wrapped in paper and packed twenty in a box.


Munster Cheese is very much the same as Brick except for the form, it being round, molded in a perforated tin hoop instead of the box used for Limburger and Brick.


SOFT RENNET CHEESE

The soft cheese made with rennet may be classified as fresh and cured.


Neufchatel.—The fresh soft cheese of the Neufchatel or Cream Cheese type is easily made and may be produced in any house from a small quantity of milk. The milk is set at a comparatively low temperature, usually 72° F., with very little rennet, just enough to coagulate the milk in about eighteen hours. During that time a slight acidity develops in the milk. When it is firmly curdled it is carefully dipped on to cheese-cloth suspended on a frame, or into cotton bags where it drains overnight.

To make the cheese quickly a starter is sometimes used and more rennet employed. The milk is heated to 80° F., 25% starter and 7½ c.c. of rennet extract, or one rennet tablet per hundred pounds of milk, are added and the milk curdles in about 30 minutes.

After draining for a few hours the curd is gently