A diary or register should be kept, into which the date and number of each cheese should be formally entered, together with such remarks as may be needful and proper concerning the condition of the milk, and the peculiarities of the curd, &c. The cheese-maker, when testing the quality of any cheese after it is ripe, may learn from the register the precise conditions of its manufacture, and will thus be assisted in attaining that degree of excellence which was laid down in the beginning of this work as a proper standard or quality.[A] It will also be found highly useful to note down many similar facts, such as the various yields of milk at particular seasons, and from different kinds of pasture or house-feeding, as the practice will not only give wide views of the subject, and correct information regarding it, but will also tend greatly to foster accurate and business-like habits.
It is necessary to state distinctly the mode of procedure best adapted for this contingency because the over-acidity of milk when not detected and duly attended to in the process, produces a corresponding blemish in the cheese.
In very warm weather, when the temperature of the evening's milk stands in the morning as high as 70° or upwards, every part of the process described in the previous section must be hastened. The curd is broken more speedily than usual, and whey is taken off as soon as possible, and quickly warmed for scalding. When the operation of breaking is concluded, an interval of only five minutes is allowed before the whey is run off. Scalding is then proceeded with, but, under these circumstances, the curd and whey should only be raised to the temperature of 98°. When the proper degree of firmness has been attained by stirring, the rest of the whey is run off after another interval of five minutes, and when the curd is heaped up, ten minutes only are allowed to elapse before it is cut across and turned over. At the end of other ten minutes, it is laid upon the cooler, in five minutes more it is turned over, and at the end of other five it is put into the vat and under the press. Having been subjected to pressure for five minutes, the curd is taken out, ground in the mill, put back into the cooler, and salted. It is then stirred up to cool, until the temperature of the mass is reduced to 65°, when it is placed in the vat, and subjected to the ordinary routine of pressure. It may be stated, in illustration of the time occupied by these operations, that if the curd be ready for breaking at eight o'clock, it may be milled and salted by eleven. By expeditiously conducting every stage of the process, excellent cheeses may be produced, even at the above temperature; but when the ordinary time is allowed to elapse before the curd is "cooked" and salted, the cheeses will likely be sour. These rules and statements are based on the safe ground of personal experience, for in a very warm season we have made upwards of forty tons of cheese without one being sour.