DAIRY.
The greatest possible attention must be paid to cleanliness. All the utensils must be daily scalded and brushed, washed in plenty of cold water, dried with clean cloths, and turned up in the air.
The dairy should be kept perfectly clean and cool.
In milking, if the cows be not left perfectly dry, the quantity will be decreased. The quantity depends on the goodness of different cows, on the pasture, and on the length of time from calving. A middling cow gives a pound of butter a day for five or six weeks, and sometimes longer. When the milk decreases, a change even to a worse pasture will effect an alteration; and where water is within reach of the animals, it is of great consequence to the milk.
The chief of the cows should come in the end of March, or the beginning of April, and one the end of September; then the family will be supplied with milk in the winter.
When a calf is to be reared, it should be taken from the cow in a week at furthest, or it will cause great trouble in rearing, because it will be difficult to make it take milk in a pan. The calf should be taken from the cow in the morning, and kept without food till next morning, when being hungry it will take it without much trouble. Skimmed milk made as warm as new, is to be given twice a day in such quantities as it shall require and if milk run short, a fine smooth gruel mixed with it will do very well. This is to be continued till the calf be taken out to grass, which at first will be only by day, then milk must be given when housed in the evening.
To scald Cream.
In winter the milk stands twenty four hours before scalded; in the summer twelve. The milkpan is to be put on a hot hearth, if you have one, or if not, into a brass kettle of water, of a size to receive the pan. It must remain on the fire till quite hot, but on no account boil, or there will be a skin, instead of cream, upon the milk. You will know when done enough by the undulations on the surface, and looking quite thick. The time required to scald cream depends on the size of the pan and the heat of the fire; the slower the better. Remove the pan into the dairy when done, and skim it next day.
Of cream thus prepared, the butter is usually made in Devonshire, &c.
Buttermilk.
If made of sweet cream, is a delicious and most wholesome food. Those who can relish sour buttermilk, find it still more light; and it is reckoned more beneficial in some cases.
To cure Mawskins for Rennet.
Cut the calf’s stomach open, rub it well with salt, let it hang to drain two days, then salt it well, and let it lie in that pickle a month or more; then take it out, drain, and flour it, stretch it out with a stick, and let it hang up to dry.
A piece of this is to be soaked, and kept ready to turn the milk in cheesemaking time.
Some lands make cheese of a better quality than the butter produced on them is.
When the soil is poor, the cheese will want fat; to remedy which, after pressing the whey from the curd, crumble it quite small, and work into it a pound of fine fresh butter; then press, &c. as usual.
Cream Cheese.
Put five quarts of strippings, that is, the last of the milk, into a pan, with two spoonfuls of rennet. When the curd is come, strike it down two or three times with the skimming dish just to break it. Let it stand two hours, then spread a cheesecloth on a sieve, put the curd on it, and let the whey drain; break the curd a little with your hand, and put it into a vat with a two pound weight upon it. Let it stand twelve hours, take it out, and bind a fillet round. Turn every day till dry, from one board to another; cover them with nettles, or clean dockleaves, and put between two pewter plates to ripen. If the weather be warm, it will be ready in three weeks.
Another.
Have ready a kettle of boiling water, put five quarts of new milk into a pan, and five pints of cold water, and five of hot; when of a proper heat, put in as much rennet as will bring it in twenty minutes, likewise a bit of sugar. When come, strike the skimmer three or four times down, and leave it on the curd. In an hour or two lade it into the vat without touching it; put a two pound weight on it when the whey has run from it, and the vat is full.
Another sort.
Put as much salt to three pints of raw cream as shall season it; stir it well, and pour it into a sieve in which you have folded a cheesecloth three or four times, and laid at the bottom. When it hardens, cover it with nettles on a pewter plate.
Rush Cream Cheese.
To a quart of fresh cream, put a pint of new milk warm enough to make the cream a proper warmth, a bit of sugar and a little rennet.
Set near the fire till the curd comes, fill a vat made in the form of a brick, of wheat straw or rushes sewed together. Have ready a square of straw, or rushes sewed flat to rest the vat on, and another to cover it; the vat being open at top and bottom. Next day take it out, and change it as above to ripen. A half pound weight will be sufficient to put on it.
Another way.
Take a pint of very thick sour cream from the top of the pan for gathering for butter, lay a napkin on two plates, and pour half into each, let them stand twelve hours, then put them on a fresh wet napkin in one plate, and cover with the same; this do every twelve hours until you find the cheese begins to look dry, then ripen it with nut leaves; it will be ready in ten days.
Fresh nettles, or two pewter plates, will ripen cream cheese very well.