A curing-room should be made with a wind-proof wall. This would guard against sudden changes of weather, by keeping out both heat and cold. Sufficient air can be introduced through the windows, which should be made to open easily, and be provided with blinds. There should also be provision for supplying artificial heat, equally distributed throughout the building, and not from a red-hot stove set in the middle, or in one end or corner, where it will toast the cheeses near it, and leave those farther off to chill in the cold weather of spring and fall. If steam is used, the heating apparatus may be made to do the double work of cooking the curd, and warming the drying-room. This may be done by means of hot-air tubes, or by the use of steam-pipes running round the room. Of course it would cost a little at the beginning; but a curing room once properly fitted up would soon pay the extra expense in the saving of time, labor, care, vexation and money. A thousand and one annoyances would be guarded against, and the proprietor would have the satisfaction of knowing that he had got a good thing, which would insure the most that could be expected from the product of the cheese-vat, and build up a first-class reputation and a permanent business.
A curing-room should not only be kept at an equable temperature of 70° to 80°, but be well ventilated. The gases constantly emitted by the curing process should have a chance to freely escape and leave the atmosphere as pure and sweet as possible. There is no more sense in supposing that a cheese can cure properly and have a clean, wholesome flavor, if kept in a close, unventilated room, than that a human being can retain his health in impure air. The curing-room must be kept clean and sweet, dry and airy--not by allowing the wind to whistle through it as it listeth, but by a judicious system of heating and ventilating, which will allow the hot and chill blasts to blow harmlessly by.
When a cheese is first removed from the hoops, care should be taken that its face be not allowed to dry and crack before it is greased with hot whey-butter. Nothing has been found so good as whey-butter for the purpose of greasing cheese, and it should be applied hot, and as soon after the cheese is set on the range as possible. If it dries at all, we think it injurious to the formation of a smooth, glassy face; and if it dries much, the face is sure to check and present an unsatisfactory appearance, besides furnishing convenient places for the cheese-fly to deposit its eggs.